
Class 
Book 



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, Q 



c 

PRESET IMi 



-V 



liY 



LETTERS 



ON 



THE LATE WAR 



BETWEEN THE 



UNITED STATES AND GREAT BRITAIN 



TOGETHER WITH 



OTHER MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



ON 



THE SAME SUBJECT. 



I 

BY WILLI4M COBBETT, ESQ. 



NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY J. BELDEN AND CO. 

van Winkle & Wiley, Prfnteri. 

1815.' 



DISTRICT OP NEW-YORK, ««. 

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the twenty-seventh day of November, in the 
fortieth year of the Independence of the United States of America, J. Belden & Co. 
of the *aid district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof 
they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit : 

"Letters on the late War between the United States and Great Britain: toge- 
ther with other Miscellaneous Writings, on the same Subject. By William Cob- 
bett, Esq." 

In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States, entitled, " An act for 
the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to 
the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned ;" 
and also to an act, entitled, " An act, supplementary to an act, entitled an act for 
the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to 
the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and 
extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching histo- 
rical and other prints." 

THERON RUDD, 
Clerk of the Southern District of New-York. 



Gift 

2kgW 



PREFACE. 



A preface, in many instances, may be said to lie 
an apology to the public for the entertainment which 
the author or publisher is about to set before his 
readers; and, conscious of the inferiority of the 
viands, of the defect in cookery, or the misarrange- 
ment of the table, he is induced to make known his 
disappointment at what he intended should be a treat, 
and to ask the pardon of his guests. 

Considering a preface in this light, we should not 
pretend to offer one to our readers. We have no 
apology to make for the contents of this volume : it 
contains the writings of a man, on the concerns of 
America, whose energetic pen has been, for twentj 
years, employed in political discussions, and who, 
from the boldness and originality of his style, as well, 
as from his perspicuity of expression, has received 
the current approbation of the generality of English 
readers, and even silenced the pen of invidious cri- 
ticism. 

We are aware that all we could say, either in fa? 
vour of, or against these letters, would not add an 
atom to their merit, or detract from the prejudice 
which many may feel towards them; but we consi- 
der it a duty that we owe to the public, to state our 
opinion of the writer, and our inducements to their 
publication. 



VI PREFACE. 

he now is endeavouring to hold, at least, for the re- 
mainder of his life, a steady, unbiassed, and inde- 
pendent pen, fearless of frowns, and heedless of fa- 
vours. His writings certainly bear no more analogy 
to the speeches of the members of the opposition, than 
to those of the ministerial bench, excepting that of the 
thorough contempt which he now bears for those pri- 
vileged orders he once extolled, and those licentious 
exactions he once called necessary. The opposition 
never uttered, nor dared to utter, such sentiments 
as are expressed by Cobbett in these letters. They 
are completely unique, to come from the pen of an 
Englishman, and are as bold as unique, possessing 
within themselves a property, sui generis, which 
neither king, lords, nor commons could imitate, for 
they speak a language they are not wont to hear — 
the language of truth, exhibiting their errors, their 
injustice, and folly. 

Instead of adverting to what William Cobbett has 
been, we therefore prefer to do justice to what he 
now is, and, presenting these letters as his index, we 
leave him to the better judgment of our readers. 

*.£* // is not the novelty of these letters which induces 
our publication, hut in order to preserve them for the 
American reader. Many of them have been published 
in our daily papers ; but the ephcmerdl fate of a news- 
paper is such as ivould not warrant its being made a 
chronicle of reference ; besides, we are convinced thai 
no one paper contains all these letters, and, in those that 
contain the most of them, they are so heterogeneoushj 



_ • « ■ 



PREFACE. VII 



mixed, that the reader is in pain while he resorts to 
them. With regard to our chronological arrangement 
of dates, SCc. the reader must make an excuse for us in 
his own mind, by considering the detached and uncertain 
manner in which they reached us. lie have, in some 
instances, preferred following the order of the subject 
than the date, for which, we should presume, he would 
feel rather pleased than angry. Conscious that we have 
exerted ourselves to gratify our patrons, we shall feci 
proud of their pleasure, and shall continue our compi- 
lations of William CobbeWs writings on America, 
should these he received with the public's approbation* 

New-York, November, 181". 



LETTERS 



OF 



WILLIAM COBBETT, ES&. 



LETTER I. 

TO THE PRINCE REGENT: 

Sir, 

Feeling, as the people of this kingdom do so severely, 
smarting, writhing, as we are, under the effects of the war 
with France, and considering how easily this war might, in 
1793, have been avoided without either danger or dishonour 
to England; thus feeling, and thus reflecting, it is natural for 
us, when threatened with a new war, to inquire, betimes, what 
are the grounds of such war ; whether it would be just ; if just, 
whether it would be necessary ; and, be the cause what it may, 
whether the consequences are likely to be good or evil. 

If, sir, the counsels of Mr. Fox had been listened to, in the 
years 1 792 and 1793, the state of England, of Europe, and of 
the world, would have been very different indeed from what it 
now is. A war against opinions and principles would not have 
been waged ; England, instead of becoming a party in that 
fatal and disgraceful war, would have been a mediatress be- 
tween the conflicting parties, if, indeed, she had not wholly 
prevented the conflict. So manv governments would not have 
been overthrown ; such rivers of human blood would not have 
been shed ; reformation might and would have been produced, 
because the state of things, and the temper of men's minds, de- 
manded it; but no where need there have been destruction; 
all the states of Europe might have remained on their old 
foundations, and the Bourbons might at this day have been upon 
the thrones of France and Spain. This kingdom, too, might, 
and must have shared in the reformation ; but such reformation 
would have made no inroads upon rank or property ; and the 
nation would have avoided all those measures of coercion, all 
those before-unheard-of laws to which the contest gave rise ; 

2 



10 Letters of William Ccbbett, Esq. 

and those enormous expenses, which, first producing debt and 
tenfold taxation, led by degrees to that pauperism and paper 
money, which now form the two great and hideous features in 
the state of our internal affairs, and which no man who really 
loves the country can contemplate without the most serious 
apprehensions. 

Such being the consequences of that war, or, rather a part 
of these consequences, the far greater proportion of them being, 
in all probability, yet to come, it behooves those who have 
power to act to consider well before they launch the country 
into a new war ; and it is the right of every man to express, in 
the way which he may think most likely to be efficient, his 
opinions upon the subject. This right I am now about to exer- 
cise, and if I have chosen, as the .vehicle, an address to your 
Royal Highness, it is because that respect, which inclination 
as well as duty dictate upon such an occasion, will not fail to 
make me dismiss from my mind all partiality and prejudice, and 
to offer nothing unsupported by fair reasoning and undeniable 
facts. . 

As to the grounds of the present dispute with the American 
States, they are some of them of very long standing. The 
conduct of this government relative to the war against those 
States was extremely unwise ; but its conduct since the war 
is, I am convinced, unparalleled in the annals of diplomatic fol- 
ly. The moment that war was at an end, the people of the 
two countries, attached to each other by all the ties which im- 
perious nature has provided, were ready to rush into a mutual 
embrace, and like children of the same common parent, whose 
harmony had been disturbed by a transient quarrel, to become 
even more affectionate towards each other than they bad been 
before. Not so the governments. With them ambition and 
resentment had something to say. But, the American Govern- 
ment being, from the nature of its constitution, a thing of such 
transient possession, it would have been impossible for any set 
of men long to remain in power if they had been discovered to 
entertain a vindictive disposition towards England ; that is to 
say, if the government of England had discovered no such dis- 
position towards America. Unhappily such a disposition was 
but too plainly seen in the whole of the conduct of our govern- 
ment ; ami hence we have witnessed, from the end of the Ame- 
rican war to this day, a dispute, and an angrj dispute too, upon 
some ground or other, constantly existing and in agitation be- 
tween the two countries, to the great injury of them both, to 
the great injury of the cause of freedom, and to the great ad- 
vantage of France as a nation, and to the cause of despotic 
sway all over the world. The mar was at an end, but the 
quarrel seemed only to have begun : a seven years war, and 
an already eight-aud-twenty years of quarrel I 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 11 

If was full ten years before we condescended to send a Mi- 
Bister to reside in America, and when we did it, the object 
seemed to be only to recall, or to render more active, ancient 
animosities. A miserable dispute about old claims for debts 
due to English subjects on one side, and about negroes carried 
off at the peace on the other side, clouded and made gloomy 
the dawn of this new diplomatic intercourse. This dispute was 
kept alive until new claims for vessels unlawfully confiscated 
arose on the part of the American government. The treaty 
of 1T94, which provided for Commissioners to settle these 
claims would, it was hoped, produce harmony ; but it is well 
known that it only widened the breach. At last, however, we 
patched up this matter: we yielded, but it was without magna- 
nimity—we gave our money ; the nation was taxed to make up 
for the blunders of the cabinet ; but we gave without the credit 
of generosity. In the meanwhile, the English creditors have 
remained, many of them until this day, unsatisfied, while a 
Board of Commissioners, who have been sitting either here or 
in America ever since the year 1794, or, at least, have been 
paid all that time, have swallowed up in expenses to the nation, 
a great part of what would have sufficed to satisfy our own 
claimants without any application for money for that purpose to 
the American States. In the course of this part of the dispute 
there was much unfairness on the part of the American Govern- 
ment; and we might have been fully justified, strictly speak- 
ing, in coming to a rupture upon that ground. But, we came 
to neither a rupture nor a reconciliation : we asserted our claims, 
and then gave them up ; but we took care to choose that manr 
ner of doing it, which effectually took all merit from the thing. 

This point was hardly patched up, when another subject of 
dispute arose ; to that another, and another, and another, have 
succeeded, the long-contested question relative to the impress' 
went of American seamen running through the whole. So 
that, at last, there has grown together a mass of disputes and of 
ill-blood, which threaten us with a new war, and which war 
threatens us with new burdens, and, still worse, which threat- 
ens the world with the extinguishment of some part, at leas', of 
its remaining liberties. The points, however, more immedi- 
ately at issue, are those relating to the present nonimportation 
law and the affair between the American Frigate President, 
and our sloop of war, the Little Belt. As to the former points 
in dispute, the Americans were the complainants : they called 
for satisfaction, and, whether they ought to have obtained it or 
not, it is certain that they have not yet obtained it. Upon 
these two recent points, therefore, as being thought likely to 
lead to war, and as being so represented by those public prints 
which are known to be under the influence of persons in power, 



1 2 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

I shall now proceed most respectfully to offer to your Royal 
Highness such remarks as the occasion appears to me to demand. 
The JS on- Importation Act, that is to say, the law which has 
been passed in America to prohibit the importation of any thing 
being the growth or manufacture of Great Britain or Ireland, 
and which law is now in force in America, must doubtless be 
regarded as a measure of a hostile, though not of a warlike 
nature, because the same law does not apply to the enemy 
with whom we are at war ; and, besrile Ibis commercial pro- 
hibition, our ships of war are shut out from the harbours, rivers, 
and waters of the United States, while our enemy's ships of 
war are permitted freely to enter and abide in tuem. These 
are distinctions of an unfriendly nature: they are, indeed, mea- 
sures of hostility ; but, then, I beg your Royal Highness to 
bear in mind, that they are acts of a much lower degree of hos- 
tility than were the acts of your Royal Father's ministers 
against France in the Year 1792, though they, to this hour, 
contend, that that war was a war of aggression on the part of 
France ; and, of course, their own doctrine, if now cited against 
this country, would be quite sufficient on the part of America. 
Rut the fact is, that the non- importation act, and the exclusion of 
British ships from the waters of America, while importation is 
permitted from France, and while French ships have free 
entrance and abidance in the waters of the United States, are 
acts of a hostile nature, and would, if unjustified by provoca- 
tion, fully authorize, on our part, acts of reprisal and of war. 

But, sir, these measures, on the part of America, have not 
been adopted without alleged provocation, and without loud 
and reiterated remonstrances. They have, in fact, arisen out 
of certain measures adopted by us, and which measures are 
alleged to be in violation of the rights of America as a neutral 
nation; and, therefore, before we can justify a war in conse- 
quence of the hostile measures of America, we must ascertain 
whether her allegations against us be true ; for, if they be, we 
may find, perhaps, that she is not only not blamable for what 
she has now done, but is entitled to praise for her forbearance 
and moderation. 

That we have violated the rights of America as a neutral 
state, there can be no doubt. The fact is not denied ; nor is 
it pretended, that the violation would not, in itself, be sufficient 
to justify any degree of hostility on the part of the offended 
state. Indeed, to dispute these facts, would be to show a total 
disregard of truth ; for, we have published, and, as far as in us 
lies, we have carried, and still carry into execution, an inter- 
did acrainst all trade on the part of America, except such as 
we choose to license. We have said to her, that she shall not 
carry the produce of her soil and exchange it for the produce 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 1 



«s 



af the soil of France, Italy, or Holland. If we meet with one 
of her ships laden with the flour of Pennsylvania, and owned by 
a Pennsylvanian merchant, bound to any port of the French, 
empire, we compel such ship to come into some one of our 
ports, and there to unlade and dispose of her cargo, or else to 
pay duty upon it, before we permit her to proceed on her voy- 
age. In short, we have issued and acted upon such edicts as 
establish an absolute control and sovereignty over the ships of 
America, and all that part of the population and property of 
America that are employed in maritime commerce. 

That the rights of America are herein openly violated, all the 
world knows. Your Royal Highness need not be reminded of 
the dispute, so long continued, relative to the right of search; 
that is to say, a right, on the part of a belligerent, to search 
merchant neutral ships at sea, in order to ascertain whe- 
ther they had on board contraband goods of war, or goods 
belonging to an enemy. It was contended by those who denied 
the right of search, that no belligerent had a right to search a 
neutral at sea, in any case ; and that, if this point was given 
up, the goods of an enemy, in a neutral ship, ought not to be 
seized, for that the neutrality of the ship protected the goods. 
To this doctrine English writers and statesmen have never sub- 
scribed ; they insisted, that we had a right to search neutral 
ships upon the high seas, and if we found contraband articles, 
or enemy's- goods on board of them, to seize them, and, in some 
cases, to make ship, as well as cargo, lawful prize. But, no 
statesman, no lawyer, no writer, ever pretended, that we had a 
right to seize in a neutral ship the gooils of a neutral party. 
No one ever dreamt of selling up a right like this, which, in 
fact, is neither more nor less than making war upon the neutrals; 
because we do to them the very worst that we can do, short of 
wanton cruelty, of which the laws and usages of war do not 
allow. 

In justification of the adoption of these our measures towards 
America, our government asserted, that France had begun iue 
violation of the neutral rights of America, and that our measures 
were in the way of retaliation, and that the laws of war allowed 
of retaliation. It is a singular species of law, which, because a 
weak nation has been injured by one powerful nation, subjects 
it to be injured by another. If Belcher were to beat Mr. Per- 
ceval and Lord Liverpool in the street, Crib would not, for that 
reason, be justified in beating them too : this would, I presume, 
be deemed a new and most outrageous species of retaliation ; 
and there is little doubt that the belligerent pugilists would soon 
be sent to a place where they would have leisure to study the 
laws of war. But it is alleged by our government, that the 
Americans submitted to the Decrees of Napoleon ; that they 



14 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

acquiesced in his violation of their rights ; and that it was just 
in us to tieat them in the same manner that he had treated them, 
because they had so submitted and acquiesced. The same 
reason would apply equally well in justification of the above 
supposed retaliatory measures of Crib, who also might, with 
just as much truth, accuse Mr. Perceval and Lord Liverpool 
of submission and acquiescence with regard to Belcher ; for 
they could not avoid submission and acquiescence to superior 
force; they might cry out s indeed, and they would cry out; 
and so did the Americans, who, from the first day to the last of 
the existence of the French Decrees, ceased not to remonstrate 
against them, and that, too, in the strongest terms ; and, there- 
fore, there appears not to have been the slightest ground where- 
on to build a justification of our measures as measures of reta- 
liation. 

But, sir, if our measures were not justifiable upon the suppo- 
sition that this violation of neutral rights was be. un b> the 
enemy, surely they must be declared to be wholly without jus- 
tification, if it appear lhat we ourselves were the beginners in 
this career of violation of the rights of America as a neutral 
state ; and that this is the fact is clearly proved by the docu- 
ments which have long ago been laid before the public, but 
which I beg leave to call to the recolleciion of \our Royal 
Hiehness. 

This rivalship in the violation of neutral rights began in a 
declaration, on our part, made to America through hei Minister 
here, that she was to consider the entrances of the Ems, the 
Weser, the Elbe, and the Trave, as in a state of rigorous block- 
ade, though it was notoriously impossible for us to maintain such 
blockade by actual forces. The grounds for this measure were 
stated to be, that the King of Prussia (and not France) had 
forcibly and hoslilely taken possession of various parts of the 
Electorate of Hanover and other dominions belonging to his 
majesty, and had shut English ships out of the Prussian ports. 
This might be a very good reason for shutting the Ems, the 
Weser, the Elbe, and the Trave, against Prussian ships ; but, 
surely it gave us no right to shut them against the ships of 
America, whose government had had nothing to do with the 
King of Prussia's hostile seizure upon the Electorate of Hano- 
ver ; who had neither aided him, abetted him, nor encouraged 
him in any manner whatever; and, it was very hard that the 
people of America should be made to suffer from the result of 
a dispute, be it what it might, between the King of Prussia and 
the Elector of Hanover. The King of Prussia is closely con- 
nected by marriage with your Royal Highness's illustrious 
family : it is not, therefore, for me to dare to presume that he 
s-bould have been capable of any thing unbecoming his high 






\Q*A 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 15 

rank ; but this I may venture to say, that, whatever his conduct 
might be, there could be no justice in making the people, or any 
portion of the people, of America suffer for that conduct. 
Indeed, sir, if appears to me, that to involve, in any way what 
ever, England in this dispute about Hanover, was not very 
closely conformable to that great constitutional Act by which 
your Royal Highness's family was raised to the throne of this 
kingdom, and which Act expressly declares, that in case of the 
family of Brunswick succeeding to the Throne, no war shall be 
undertaken by England tor their German dominions, unless by 
consent of Parliament* If the measure of blockade above 
mentioned had produced war on the part of America, that war 
would have been made without consent of Parliament ; and, 
though a measure fall short of producing war, it may be equally 
a violation of the Act of Settlement, if its natural tendency be 
to produce war, or to cause England to support warlike ex- 
penses, which this measure manifestly has done, and has, at last, 
led to something very nearly approaching to open war with 
America, though, in the mean while, Hanover itself has been 
wrested from the King of Prussia, and formed inco a member of 
another kingdom. 

Thus, then, at any rate, this attack upon the rights of neutrals 
did not begin with France. If it was not begun by us, it was 
begun by the King of Prussia, though it is not very easy to 
perceive how he could violate the maritime rights of America 
by any act of his in the heart of Germany. The Decrees of 
France have grown out of our measures. They carry in them- 
selves the proof of this. The first (for there are but two) is- 
sued from Berlin, was expressly grounded upon our Orders 
issued in consequence of the conduct of the King of Prussia in 
Hanover ; and thus the Emperor Napoleon became, towards us, 
the avenger, as far as he was able, of that very King of Prussia, 
whom he had just driven from his dominions ! Alas, sir, what 
a scene was here exhibited to the people of Europe ! First the 
King of Prussia, closely related to the family of the King of 
England, seizes upon the German dominions of the latter : the 
latter protests against this, and, by his Secretary of State, de- 
clares that he never will make peace without obtaining the re- 
storation of these dominions : while this quarrel is going on, Na- 
poleon marches against the king of Prussia, defeats him, drives 
Lim from his dominions, takes Hanover, the object in dispute, 
and bestows it on a third party ; and, from the capital of the 
king of Prussia's dominions, issues a decree against England, 
avenging the cause of the king of Prussia ! 

Napoleon, in this his first Decree, declares England (who had, 
by this time, extended her blockade from the Elt>e to the Port 
of Biest) in a slate of blockade, and prohibits all iraue and all 









16 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

commercial communication with England. But, this Decree* 
which was little less practicable in all cases than our blockade, 
was declared to be retaliatory, and was to be repealed when- 
ever England repealed her Orders in Council which had then 
been issued. Certainly this was not the beginning. We had be- 
gun, and that, too, under the administration of those who have 
since so loudly censured the Orders in Council ; and, which 
must, I presume, be a subject of regret with your Royal High- 
ness, the state paper in which this beginning was announced to 
the American government, came from the pen of Mr. Fox, who 
appears to have yielded implicitly to the principles of his new 
associates in politics. At any rate, this Decree of the Emperor 
Napoleon was not the beginning of the open attacks upon neu- 
tral rights ; and, what is of still more importance, it was not 
Napoleon, but it was the king of Prussia, who committed those 
acts of aggression in Hanover which produced our first of that 
series of measures, called the Orders in Council, and which mea- 
sures have finally led to the exclusion of our goods and our 
ships from the American ports. This is a fact of great import- 
ance in the dispute, and especially if that dispute should end 
in war. It will be right, in that case, for us to bear in mind the 
real grounds of the war ; the true origin of it. And, endeavour to 
cast the blame where we will, it will, at last, be found in the ag- 
gression of the king of Prussia upon Hanover. 

The Berlin Decree brosght forth new Orders in Council from 
as; and these brought from the Emperor Napoleon the Decree 
issued at Milan, in December, 180T. This ended the series of 
invasions of neutral rights ; for, indeed, nothing more was now 
left to invade. Both parties called their measures retaliatory. 
Crib having taken a blow upon a third party in the way of re- 
taliation on Belcher, Belcher takes another blow upon the same 
party in the way of retaliation on Crib. Both parties declared, 
that they were perfectly ready to repeal their Decrees ; that 
they regretted exceedingly the necessity of adopting them ; 
each explicitly promised, that, whenever the other gave up the 
new restrictions, he would also give them up too. Napoleon 
said his measures had been forced upon him by us : we said our 
measures had been forced upon us by him. The Americans, 
who complained of both, were told by us, that we should always 
be ready to revoke our Orders if the enemy would revoke his 
Decrees. This was saying very little, seeing that his Decrees 
had been issued in consequence of our Orders, and, of course, 
he was not to be expected to revoke first, especially as the De- 
crees themselves declare that their object is to cause our Orders 
to be revoked. 

The American government, having remonstrated so long in 
rain, and seeing no likelihood of obtaining redress by the 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. If 

means of diplomatic entreaties, and yet not wishing to plunge 
the country into a war, resort to the measure of exclusion from 
their ports, giving to both parties an opportunity of preventing 
the execution even of this measure of demi hostility. During 
the session of Congress in 1809-10, a law was passed providing, 
that if both France and England continued in their violation of 
the rights of America until and after the 1st day of November, 
1810, the ships and goods of both should be prohibited from 
entering the ports and waters of the American States ; that if 
they both repealed their obnoxious Decrees and Orders, then 
the ships and goods of both were to have free admission ; that if 
one party repealed and the other did not, then the ships and 
goods of the repealing party were to be admitted, and the ships 
and goods of the non-repealing party were to be excluded. 
Napoleon, the Americans say, has repealed : we have not, and, 
accordingly, our ships and goods are excluded, while those of 
France are admitted into the waters and ports of the United 
States. 

This is one source of the present ill blood against America, 
who is accused of partiality to France ; but before this charge 
can be established, we must show that the measures she 
has adopted are not the natural and necessary result of an im- 
partial measure ; a measure in execution of an impartial law. If 
a pardon were tendered to Belcher and Crib upon condition that 
they ceased to beat the parties as above supposed, and if Bel- 
cher persisted while his enemy did not, the injured parties 
could not fairly be accused of partiality in pardoning Crib 
while they punished Belcher. The American government and 
people may, however, without any crime, or, at least, without 
giving us any just cause of complaint against them, like, and 
show that they like, Napoleon belter than Messrs. Perceval and 
Rose, and Lords Liverpool and VVellesley. It may be bad 
taste in the American government and people to entertain such 
a liking ; it may be great stupidity, and almost wilful blindness, 
that prevents them from perceiving how much more the latter 
are the friends of freedom than the former. But, so long as the 
American government does no act of partiality affecting us, we 
have no reason to complain : so that justice is done to a man 
in court, he has no reason to complain of the personal likings or 
dislikings of the judge or the jury. The people in America 
look at France, and at the state of Europe in general, with minds 
pretty free from prejudice. They are in no fear of the power 
of Napoleon. They have amongst them no persons whose h> 
terests are served by inflaming the hatred of the people against 
him. They reckon dynasties as nothing. They coolly com- 
pare the present with the former state of Europe ; and if they 
give the preference to the present state of things, it must he be 

3 



-. 



18 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

cause they think there has been a change for the better. They 
may be deceived ; but it can be the interest of nobody to de- 
ceive them. Those who have the management of their public 
affairs may have a wrong bias ; but they cannot communicate 
it to the people ; for they have no public money to expend 
upon a hireling press. The government and people may all be 
deceived ; but the deception cannot be the effect of any cheat 
practised upon either ; it cannot be the work of bribery and 
corruption. If, therefore, the government and people of Ame- 
rica do really entertain a partiality for Napoleon, we have, on 
that account, good ground for regret, but certainly none for 
complaint or reproach. They have a right to like and to dis- 
like whom they please. We, for instance, have a great attach- 
ment to the court and government of Sicily, and also to the 
courts and ancient governments of Spain and Portugal. We 
should not permit the American government or people to inter- 
fere with these attachments of ours ; and, I presume, it will, 
therefore, not be thought reasonable that we should arrogate to 
ourselves the right of judging whom the American people and 
government are to like. 

When we are told of the " partiality for France," which is a 
charge continually preferred against the American government, 
we should ask what acts of partiality they have been guilty of, 
and that is the test by which we ought to try their conduct in 
the present instance. They have put their law in force ; they 
have shut out our goods and our ships, while they freely admit 
those of France; and this is called partiality, and is made the 
grounds of one of those charges, by the means of which, it ap- 
pears to me, that the venal press in England is endeavouring to 
prepare the minds of the people for a war with the American 
States. But, to make out this charge, it must be shown, that 
the French have done nothing that we have not done in the 
way of repealing the injurious Decrees. Indeed, this is what 
is asserted ; and, though a regular communication has been made 
to the American government by the French government, that 
the Berlin and Milan Decrees are revoked ; though they are 
by the American Minister here asserted to be revoked, and 
no longer in operation ; still it is asserted by some here, that 
they are not revoked. The American government, however, 
as satisfied that they are revoked, and it has, accordingly, put 
its exclusion law in force against us. 

To settle this point of fact the Americans have not been 
told what sort of evidence we shall require. They present us 
the letter of the French minister for foreign affairs to the Ame- 
rican minister at Paris, telling him that the Decrees are revoked, 
and that the revocation is to go info effect on the 1st of Novem- 
ber, 1810, This we say is nothing at all, because it is clogged 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 19 

with this remark, " it being clearly understood that the English 
Orders in Council are to be revoked at the same time." Cer- 
tainly. This was to be naturally expected; and England had 
promised that it should be so. The Decrees have actually been 
revoked, without this condition being complied with on our part; 
but, if they had not, it was to be expected that the American 
government would put their exclusion law in force against us 
at the lime appointed ; because we ought to have declared our 
intention at the same time, and in the same manner that the 
French declared their intention. It was in the month of August, 
1810, that Mr. Pinckney, the American minister in London, 
communicated to our Foreign Secretary, Lord Wellesley, that 
the French decrees were revoked, and that the revocation was 
to take effect from the 1st day of the then ensuing November. 
The answer which Mr. Pinckney expected, was, that the En- 
glish Orders in Council were also revoked, and that the revoca- 
tion would take effect from the 1st of November. That he had a 
right to expect this will clearly appear from the communications 
made to the American government by our ministers in that coun- 
try, who, in answer to the complaints of America upon this score, 
always declared that the king, their master, was exceedingly 
grieved to be compelled to have recourse to such measures ; 
that nothing could be further from his heart, or more repugnant 
to his feelings, than a wish to injure or harass the commerce of 
neutrals ; that he had taken these odious measures in pure self 
defence ; that it was his "earnest desire" (1 quote one of these 
declarations) " to see the commerce of the world restored to 
that freedom which is necessary for its prosperity, and his rear 
diness to abandon the system, which had been forced upon him, 
whenever the enemy shou d retract the principles which had 
rendered it necessary." When, therefore, Mr. Pinckney, who 
hao this declaration before him, communicated to Lord Welles- 
ley the fact tiiat the French Decrees were revoked, and that 
the revocation was to go into effect on the 1st of November, he 
had a full right to expect an immediate revocation of our Or- 
ders in Council, and an assurance that such revocation should 
go into effect on the same day when the French revocation was 
to go into effect. But, instead of this, ne received for answer, 
that we would revoke our Orders when the revocation of the 
French Decrees should have actually taken place. Bui there 
was another condition, " that whenever the repeal of the French 
Decrees shall have actually taken place, and the commerce of 
neutral nations shall have been restored to the con- lit ion in 
which it stood previously to the promulgation of these Decret s," 
then the King will relinquish his present system. Here is a 
second condition. We do not here content ourselves with the 
revocation of the Decrees ; no, nor even with that revocation 



20 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 

having actually gone into effect. We call for something more, 
and that something greater too than the thing for which we be- 
fore contended. We here say, that, before we revoke our Or- 
ders, we will have the neutral commerce restored to its old foot- 
ing ; that is, that we will have the " Continental System" aban- 
doned by France, with which system the Americans have no- 
thing to do, and with regard to which they can have no right to 
say a word, it being a series of measures of internal regulation, 
not trenching upon nor touching their maritime commerce. It 
is a matter wholly distinct from the other; it relates to the re- 
ception or exclusion of English goods in France and her depen- 
dencies; and, if we are to make America answerable for the 
conduct of France in that respect, it would follow that France 
would have a right to make her answerable for our conduct in 
excluding the goods of France from the ports of England. 

We had, it appears to me, no right to require any thing of 
America, previously to our revocation of the obnoxious Orders, 
than an official and authenticated declaration that the French 
Decrees were revoked. And what more could we ask for than 
was tendered to us, I am at a loss to conjecture. The French 
government officially informed the American government that 
the Decrees were revoked, and that the revocation was to have 
effect on the 1st of November. This was officially communi- 
cated to us by the American government through their accre- 
dited minister. We were, therefore, to give credit to the fact. 
But no : we stop to see the 1st of November arrive. This was 
not the way to convince America of our readiness, our earnest 
desire, to see neutral commerce restored to freedom. The course 
to pursue, in order to give proof of such a disposition, was to 
revoke our Orders in Council, and to declare that the revocation 
would begin to be acted upon on the 1st of November. This 
would have been keeping pace with the French ; and, if we had 
found that the revocation did not go into operation in France 
on the 1st of November, we should have lost nothing by our re- 
vocation ; for we might immediately have renewed our Orders 
in Council, and we should then have continued them in force, 
having clearly thrown all the blame upon the enemy. 

This line of conduct would, too, have been perfectly conso- 
nant with our professions to the American government, to whom, 
in 1808, our minister had declared, that, in order to evince the 
sincerity of our desire to remove the impediments to neutral 
commerce, we were willing to follow the example of France in 
the way of revocation, or, to proceed step for step with her in 
the way of relaxation. Our minister, upon the occasion here 
alluded to, in communicating the several Orders in Council to 
the American government, declared that "the king felt great 
regret at the necessity imposed upon him for such an interfe- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 21 

ygnce with neutral commerce, and he assured the American 
government, that his Majesty would readily folio iv the example, 
in case the Berlin Decree should be rescinded ; or, would pro- 
ceed, pari passu with France, in relaxing the rigour of their 
measures." Agreeably to this declaration, we should, it clear- 
ly appears to me, have done exactly what France did in Au- 
gust, 1810, and not evaded it by saying that we would revoke 
after her revocation should have been actually put into opera- 
tion ; that is to say, that we would condescend to begin after 
France had ended. 

This is the view, may it please your Royal Highness, which 
clear and unclouded reason takes of this matter. This is the 
light in which it has been seen by the American government, 
and by the people of that country, who, though they do not 
wish for war, will assuredly not censure those who manage 
their affairs for acting as they have done upon this occasion. 
The measure of exclusion adopted against us by America is 
too advantageous to France for the latter not to act upon the 
revocation of her Decrees ; and, indeed, there appears now not 
to be the smallest doubt, that, as far as relates to America, (and 
she is in reality the only neutral,) the Decrees are, in deed as 
well as in word, revoked. It is notorious that our Orders 
are not revoked ; and, for nry part, I am wholly at a loss 
to form an idea of the grounds upon which any complaint 
against America can be founded, as far as relates to this part 
of the dispute. 

In a future Letter I shall submit to your Royal Highness 
some remarks relating to the affair of the Litllc Belt, and shall 
endeavour to lay before you the real state of that case, and the 
consequences which would naturally arise from a rupture with 
America, or from a prolongation of the present quarrel. 

I am, &c. &c. 

Wfi CORBF.TT, 
State Prison, Newgate, Thursday, 29th August, 181 1. 



LETTER II. 

TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 

Sir, 

Intelligence, received since the date of the former Let- 
ter which I did myself the honour to address to your Royal 
Highness, makes it more imperious upon us to examine well the 
grounds upon which we are proceeding with regard to the 
American States. The President has called the Congress to- 
gether ; and there can be little donbt of his object being to pro- 



22 Letters of William Cobbctt, Esq. 

pose to them, for their approbation, some measure more of a 
warlike character than any which he has hitherto adopted; nor 
can we it seems to me, be at all surprised at this, if, as is rumour- 
ed, it be true that Mr. Foster, our new minister in America, has 
made a communication to the American government, making 
the revocation of our Orders in Council depend upon the con- 
duct of Napoleon as to the Continental Sjstem. 

The rise and progress of the Orders in Council and of the 
French Decrees have already been noticed, and sufficiently 
dwelt upon ; it has been shown, that the grounds of the present 
dispute, namely, the flagrant violation ot neutral rights, did not 
originate with France, but with England, or, if not with England, 
with Prussia: it has been shown, and no one will attempt to 
deny the fact, that the French Decrees were passed after the 
issuing of our Orders in Council ; that they were passed ex- 
pressly in the way of retaliation ; that they were to be revoked 
when we revoked our Orders. It has been shown that we 
professed to be animated with a sincere and most earnest desire 
to revoke our Orders, and, indeed, that we expressly declared 
that we would revoke them whenever the French would revoke 
their Decrees. It has been shown that the French officially 
informed the American government that the Decrees were 
revoked, and that, thereupon, the American government called 
upon us to fulfil our promises in revoking our Orders ; but that 
we did not do this ; that we evaded the fulfilment of these pro- 
mises, and, in short, that we have not revoked, or softened the 
rigour of any part of our Orders. It has, in a word, been shown, 
that while the French have revoked their Decrees, while th*y, 
in consequence of the remonstrances of America, have ceased 
to violate her neutral rights, we persevere in such violation. 

The pretext for this was, at first, that the Emperor Napoleon, 
though he said he had revoked his Decrees, had not done it, 
and meant not to do it. This, may it please your Royal High- 
ness, was, it appears to me, a very strange kind of language to 
use towards other powers. It was treating the American go- 
vernment as a sort of political ideot. It was telling it that it did 
not understand the interests of America, and that it was un- 
worthy to be entrusted with power. And, it was sajing to the 
Emperor of Fiance, that he was to be regarded as shut out of 
the pale of sovereigns ; that he was on no account to be believed ; 
that no faith was to be given to the official communications of 
his ministers, or of any persons treating in his name. Thus, 
then, the door against peace, against exchange of prisoners, 
against a softening of the rigours of war in any way, or in any 
degree, was forever barred ; and, the termination of war was, in 
fact, made to depend upon the death ot Napoleon. 

But this pretext could not last long; for the Decrees were 



Letters of IVUliam Cobbelt, Esq. 23 

actually revoked ; the revocation went into effect ; and those 
Decrees are now wholly dead as to any violation of the neutral 
rights of America. It was, therefore, necessary to urge some 
new objection to the revocation of our Orders in Council ; and 
it is now said, that Mr. Foster has demanded that, as a condi- 
tion of the revocation of our Orders in Council, the French 
shall revoke all the commercial regulations which they have 
adopted since the Orders in Council were issued ; that is to say, 
that Napoleon shall give up what he calls the Continental Sys- 
tem, and admit English goods into the Continent of Europe. 

I do not say, may it please your Royal Highness, that Mr. 
Foster has been instructed to make such a demand : I state the 
proposition as I find it described in our own public prints; but 
this I can have no hesitation in saying, that a proposition so re- 
plete with proof of having flowed from impudence and ignorance 
the most consummate, is not to be found in the history of the di- 
plomacy of the universe. TUe government of America can 
have no right whatever to interfere with the internal regulations 
of the French empire, or any other country ; and the Continent- 
al System, as it is called, consists merely of internal regulations. 
Ttiese regulations have nothing at all to do with the rights of 
neutrals ; they do not violate, in any degree, any of those rights ; 
and, therefore, America cannot, without setting even common 
sense at defiance, be called upon to demand an abandonment of 
that system. 

But, sir, permit me to stop here, and to examine a little into 
what that system really is. It forbids the importation into the 
empire of Napoleon, and the states of his allies, of any article being 
the manufacture or produce of England or her colonies. This, 
in a few words, is the Continental System. And your Royal 
Highness certainly need not be reminded: that it is a system 
which has been very exactly copied from the commercial code 
of England herself. Your Royal Highness's ministers, and 
many members of Parliament, have spoken of this system as the 
effect of vindictiveness on the part of Napoleon ; as the effect 
of a mad despotism which threatens Europe with a return of the 
barbarous ages ; but I see nothing in this system that has not 
long made part of our own system. It is notorious, that the 
goods manufactured in France are prohibited in England ; it is 
notorious that French wine and brandy are forbidden to be 
brought hither; in short, it is notorious that no article being the 
manufacture or produce of France is permitted to be brought 
into England ; and that seizure, confiscation, fine, imprisonment, 
and ruin attend all those who act in infraction of this our com- 
mercial code. 

This being the case, it does seem to require an uncommon 
portion of impudeuce or of self conceit for us to demand of the 



24 Lellers of William Cobbett, Esq. 

Americans to cause the Continental System to be abandoned as 
condition upon which we are willing to cease to violate their 
rights. But it has been said, that Napoleon enforces his 
system with so much rigour and barbarity. This does not at 
all alter the state of the case between us and America, who has 
no power, and, if she had the power, who has no right, to inter- 
fere with his internal regulations. Yet, sir, it is not amiss to 
inquire a little into the fact of this alleged barbarity of Napoleon. 
All rulers are content with accomplishing their object; and, in 
this case, it would not be his interest to inflict greater penalties 
than the accomplishing of his object required. Our own laws 
against smuggling are not the mildest in the world ; and we 
have seen them hardened, by degrees, till they answered the 
purpose that the government had in view. We have been told, 
indeed, that Napoleon punishes offences against his commer- 
cial code with enormous fines, with imprisonment, -and we have 
fceard of instances where he has resorted to the punishment of 
death. These severities have been made the subject of most 
grievous complaints against him here ; they have brought down 
upon him reproaches the most bitter : they have been cited as 
proofs indubitable of the intolerable despotism under which his 
people groan. But, sir, I have confidence enough in your justice 
and magnanimity to remind you, that there is nothing which his 
commercial code inflicts ; that there is nothing in any of the pun- 
ishments that even rumour has conveyed to our ears ; no, nothing 
in any of these surpassing in severity ; nay, nothing in any of 
them equalling in severity, the punishments provided for in the 
commercial code of England, having for their object, towards 
France, precisely that in view which the Continental System 
has in view towards England, namely, her embarrassment, and, 
finally, her overthrow. 

In support of this assertion I could cite many of the acts in 
our statute book ; but I allude particularly to that which was 
passed in the month of May, 1T93, at the breaking out of the 
war against the republicans of France. That act, which ap- 
pears to have been drawn up by the present Lord Chancellor, 
makes it high treason, and punishes with death, and also with 
forfeiture of estates, all those persons, residing or being in Great 
Britain, who shall have any hand whatever, either directly or 
indirectly, in selling any goods (mentioned in the said act) to 
the French government, or to any body residing in French terri- 
tories. This act punishes, in the same awful manner, any one 
who shall send a bank note to any one residing in the French 
territory, or shall have any hand, in the most distant manner, in 
causing such notes to be sent. It punishes in the same manner 
any person, residing or being in Great Britain, who shall have 
any band in purchasing any real property in any country midep 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 2i 

cfie dominion of France ; and it extends its vengeance to all 
those, who, in (he most distant manner, shall have any hand in 
such transaction. This act is the 27th chap, of the 33d year 
of the reign of George the Third ; and i have never seen and 
never heard of any act or edict that dealt out death and de- 
stiuction with so liberal a hand. 

It was said at the time, by the present Lord Chancellor, and 
by the greater part of those men who compose your Royal 
Higbness's ministry, that this act, terrible as it was, was de- 
manded by the safety of the nation. This Mr. Fox denied, 
and he strenuously laboured to prevent the passing of an act so 
severe. I shall offer no opinion upon this matter ; but it is cer« 
tain that the code of Napoleon is not, because it cannot be, 
more terribly severe than this act ; and this being the case, 
common decency ought to restrain those who justified this act 
from uttering reproaches against the author cf the continental 
code. Our government then said, that the act of 1793 was 
necessary, in order to crush the revolution that had reared its 
head in France, and that was extending its principles over Eu- 
rope. They justified the act upon the ground of its necessity. 
So does Napoleon his code. He says, that that code is neces- 
sary to protect the continent against the maritime despotism 
and the intrigues of England. His accusations against us may 
be false, but he is only retorting upon us our accusations against 
France ; and between two such powers, there is nobody to 
judge. In truth, our government passed its act of 1793, be- 
cause it had the will and the power to pass and to enforce it ; 
and Napoleon has established his continental system, Decause 
he also has the will and the power. It is to the judgment of the 
world that the matter must be left, and I beseech your Royal 
Highness to consider, that the world will judge of our conduct 
according to the evidence which it has to judge from, and that 
that judgment will leave wholly out of view our interests and 
our humours. 

To return, and apply what has here been said to the case on 
which 1 have the honour to address your Royal Highness, what 
answer would have been given to America, if she, in the year 
1793, had demanded of our government the rescinding of the 
act of which I have just given a faint description ? In sup- 
posing, even by the way of argument, America to have taken 
such a liberty, I do a violence to common sense, and commit an 
outrage upon diplomatic decorum ; and it is quite impossible to 
put into words an expression of that indignation which her con- 
duct would have excited. And yet, sir, there appears to me 
to be no reason whatever for our expecting America to be per- 
mitted to interfere with Napoleon's continental system, unless 
we admit that she had a right to interfere with our act of 1793 

4 



26 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

The dispute between us and America relates to the acknow- 
ledged rights of neutral nations. These rights of America we 
avow that we violate. We have hitherto said, that we were 
ready to cease such violation as soon as the French did the 
same ; but now, it we are to believe the intelligence from Ame- 
rica, and the corresponding statements of our public prints, we 
have shitted our ground, and demand of America that she shall 
cause the continental system to be done away, or, at least, we 
tell her that it shall be done away, or we will not cease to violate 
her rights. 

The language of those who appear to be ready to justify a 
refusal, upon the ground above stated, to revoke our Orders in 
Council, is this : that it was natural to expect that the revoca- 
tion would be made to depend upon a real and effectual aboli- 
tion of the French Decrees ; that the revocation is merely no- 
minal unless all the regulations of Napoleon, made since 1 1506, 
are also repealed ; that, when these latter are repealed, it will be 
right tor America to call upon us for a repeal of our Orders in 
Council, and not before ; and, it is added, that the American 
President will not have the support of the people, if he attempt 
to act upon any other principles than these. So that, as your 
Royal Highness will clearly perceive, these persons imasine, or, 
at least, they would persuade the people of England, that un- 
less the President insist upon the admission of English manu- 
factures and produce into the dominions of France, he will not 
be supported by the people of America, in a demand of En- 
gland, to cease to violate the known and acknowledged rights of 
America. The President is not asking for any indulgence at 
our hands : he is merely asking for what is due to his country ; 
he is merely insisting upon our ceasing to violate the rights of 
America; and, if what the public prints tell us be true, we say 
in answer : " We will cease to violate your rights ; we will 
cease to do you wrong ; we will cease to confiscate your vessels 
in the teeth of the law of nations ; but not unless Napoleon will 
sutfer the continent of Europe to purchase our manufactures 
and commerce." If my neighbour complain of me for a griev- 
ous injury and outrageous insult committed against him, am I to 
answer him by saying, that I will cease to injure and insult him, 
when another neighbour with whom I am at variance will pur- 
chase his clothing and cutlery from me ? The party whom I 
injure and insult will naturally say, that he has nothing to do 
with my quarrel with a third party. We should disdain the 
idea of appealing to America as a mediatress, and, indeed, if 
she were to attempt to put herself forward in that capacity, in- 
dignation and vengeance would ring from one end of the king- 
dom to the other. Yet we are, it seems, to look to her to cause 



Letters of William Cobbttt, Esq. 2? 

the French to do away regulations injurious to us, but with 
which America has nothing at all to do 

As to the disposition of the people of America, your Royal 
Highness should receive with great distrust whatever is said, 
come from what quarter it may, respecting the popular feeling 
being against the President and his measures. The same round 
of deception will, doubtless, be used here as in all other cases 
where a country is at war with us. It is now nearly twenty 
years since we drew the sword against revolutionary France ; 
and if your Royal Highness look back, you will find, that, 
during the whole of that period, the people of France have 
been, by those who have had the power of the press in their 
hands in this country, represented as hostile to their govern- 
ment, under all its various forms, and as wishing most earnestly 
for the success of its enemies. The result, however, has been, 
that the people have never, in any one instance, aided those 
enemies ; but have made all sorts of sacrifices for the purpose 
of frustrating their designs. On the contrary, the people in all 
the countries allied with us in the war, have been invariably 
represented as attached to their government, and they have, 
when the hour of trial came, as invariably turned from that go- 
vernment, and received the French with open arms. After 
these twenty years of such terrible experience, it is not for me 
to presume, that your Royal Highness can suffer yourself to be 
deceived with regard to the disposition of the American peo- 
ple, who clearly understand all the grounds of the present dis- 
pute, and of whom, your Royal Highness may be assured, Mr. 
Madison, in his demands of justice at our hands, is but the echo. 
The Americans do not wish for war : war is a state which 
they dread : there is no class amongst them who can profit from 
war: they have none of that description of people to whom 
war is a harvest : there are none of those whom to support out 
of the public wealth the pretext of war is necessary : they 
dread a standing army : they have witnessed the effects of such 
establishments in other parts of the world : they have seen 
how such establishments and loss of freedom go hand in hand. 
Bui these considerations will not, I am persuaded, deter them 
from going far enough into hostile measures to do great injury 
to us, unless we shall, by our acts, prove to them that such 
measures are unnecessary. 

The public are told, and the same may reach the ear of your 
R<>\ al Highness, (for courts are not the places into which truth 
first makes its way,) that the American President is unpopu- 
lar; that the people are on our side in the dispute. Guard 
your ear, I beseech you, sir, against such reports, which are 
wholly false, and which have their rise partly in the ignorance, 
and partly in the venality of those by whom they are propa* 



20 Letters of William Cobbctt, Esq. 

gated. It is a fact, on which your Royal Highness may rely, 
that at the last election (in the autumn of 1810) the popular 
party had a majority far greater than at any former period ; and 
it is hardly necessary i'or me to say how that party stands with 
regard to England ; for, from some cause or other, it does so 
happen, that in every country where there is a description of 
persons professing a strong and enthusiastic attachment to 
public liberty, they are sure to regard England as their ene- 
my. We are told that these are all sham patriots ; that they 
are demagogues, jacobins, levellers, and men who delight in 
confusion and bloodshed. But, sir, the misfortune is, that 
these persons, in all the countries that we meddle with, do in- 
variably succeed in the end. Their side proves, at last, to be 
the strongest. They do, in fact, finally prove to form almost 
the whole of the people ; and, when we discover this, we gene- 
rally quit their country in disgust, and, since they " will not 
be true to themselves," we even leave (hem to be punished by 
their revolutions and reforms. In America, however, it will, I 
think, be very difficult for any one to persuade your Royal 
Highness that those who are opposed to us are shorn patriots, 
and men who wish for confusion. Every man in that country 
has enough to eat; every man has something to call bis own. 
There are no baits for sham patriots ; no fat places to scramble 
for ; no sinecures where a single lazy possessor snorts away in 
the course of the year the fruit of the labour of hundreds of 
toiling and starving wretches ; none of those things, in short, for 
the sakeof gaining which it is worth while to make hypocritical 
professions of patriotism. As an instance of the sentiments of 
4he people of America with regard to political parties, I beg 
leave to point out to your Royal Highness the circumstance of 
Mr. Pickering (who is held forth as the great champion of 
our cause in America) having, at the last election, been put out 
of the Senate of the United States, of which he had long been a 
member, being one of the Senators for Massachusetts, his native 
state. The people of the state, first elect the two Houses and 
the Governor of the state, and these elect the persons to serve 
them in the Senate of the union. Thus Mr. Pickering was, 
then, rejected, not merely by the people ; not merely at a popu- 
lar election ; but by the deliberate voice of the whole legisla- 
ture of the state. And this, too, in that part of the union 
called New-England ; in the state of Massachusetts too, which 
state, it is well known, takes the lead in the northern part of the 
country, and which state has always been represented as dis- 
posed to divide from the states of the south. If we had friends 
any where in America, it was in this state ; and yei, even in 
this state, we see the most unequivocal proof of disaffection to 
our cause. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 29 

It is useless, sir, for us to reproach the people of America 
with this disaffection. They must be left to follow their own 
taste. In common life, if we find any one that does not like us, 
we generally endeavour, if we wish to gain his liking, to win 
him to it by kindness and by benefits of some sort or other. 
We go thus to work with animals of every description. In 
cases where we have the power, we but too often make use of 
that to subdue the disinclined party to our will. But, where 
we have not the power, we are seldom so very foolish as to deal 
out reproaches against those whose good will we do not take the 
pains to gain. It is, therefore, the height of folly in us to com- 
plain that the Americans do not like our government, and pre- 
fer to it that of Napoleon. The friends of England accuse 
them of giving support to a despot. They do not love despots, 
sir, you may be assured ; ano, if they like Napoleon betier 
than they do our government, it is because they think him less 
inimical to their freedom and their property. This is the 
ground of their judgment. They are not carried away by 
words: they look at the acts that affect them ; and, upon such 
grounds, they might, under some circumstances, justly prefer 
the Dey of Algiers to the ruler of any other state. 

I am, &c. &c. 

Wm. Cobbett, 

State Prison, Newgate, Thursday, 5th September, 1811. 



LETTER III. 

TO THE PRINCE REGENT : 

Sir, 

Before I enter upon the affair of the American frigate and 
the Little Belt, permit me to call your Royal Highness's atten- 
tion, for a moment, to the servility of the English Press, and 
to offer you some remarks thereon. 

Towards the end of last week, a Council having been held, 
and an Order relative to American commerce having been 
agreed upon, it was, by those who merely knew that some or- 
der of this kind was about to come forth, taken for granted, 
that it contained a prohibition against future imports from the 
American States into this country, by way of retaliation for 
the American non- importation act. There needed no more. 
The busy slaves of the press, who endeavour even to antici- 
pate the acts of government, be they what they may, with 
the ; r approbation, lost not a moment. This " measure of re- 
taliation" as they called it, was then an instance of perfect 



30 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

wisdom in your Royal Highness's ministers : it was a measure 
become absolutely necessary to our safety as well as our ho- 
nour ; and, indeed, if it had not been adopted, we are told, 
that the ministers would have been highly criminal. Alas ! 
it was all a mistake: there was no such measure adopted: 
and, oh ! most scandalous to relate ! these same writers dis- 
covered, all in a moment, that it would have been premature 
to adopt such a measure at present ! 

I have mentioned this fact with a view of putting your Royal 
Highness upon your guard ag .inst the parasites of the press, 
who (though it may be a bold assertion to make) are the worst 
of parasites, even in England. " Hang them scurvy jades, 
they would have done no less if Caesar had murdered their 
mothers," said Casca of the strumpets of Rome, who affected 
to weep when Caesar fainted, and who shouted when he came 
to again. And be your Royal Highness well assured, that 
these same writers would have applauded your ministers, if, 
instead of an Order in Council to prohibit the importation of 
American produce, they had issued an order to strip the skin 
over the ears of the Roman Catholics, or to do any other thing, 
however tyrannical, however monstrous, it might have been. 

Suffer yourself not, then, sir, to be persuaded to act, in 
any case, from what is presented to you in the writings of these 
parasites. Reflect, sir, upon the past. During the whole of 
the last twenty years, these same writers have praised all the 
measures of the government. All these measures were, accord- 
ing to them, the fruit of consummate wisdom. Yet these mea- 
sures have, at last, produced a state of things exactly the con- 
trary of what was wished for and expected. All the measures 
which have led to the victories and conquests of France, that 
have led to her exaltation, that have produced all that we now 
behold in our own situation, the paper money not excepted ; 
all these measures have received, in their turn, the unqualified 
approbation of the parasites of the press. To know and bear 
in mind this fact will be, 1 am certain, sufficient to guard your 
Royal Highness against forming your opinion of measures from 
what may be said of them by this tribe of time-serving writers, 
who have been one of the principal causes of that state of thing3 
in Europe, which is, even with themselves, the burden of in- 
cessant and unavailing lamentation. Buonaparte ! " The Cor- 
sican Tyrant !" The " towering despot." Buonaparte! Atas! 
sir, the fault is none of his, and all the abuse bestowed upon 
him should go in another direction. The fault is in those who 
contrived and who encouraged the war against the republicans 
of France ; and amongst them, there are in all the world none 
to equal the parasites of the English press. 

In returning, now, to the affair of the American frigate and 



.._. 



Letters of William Cobbctt, Esq. 31 

(he Little Belt, the first thing would be, to ascertain which 
vessel fired the first shot. The commanders on both sides 
deny having tired first ; and, if their words are thus at vari- 
ance, the decisions of courts of inquiry will do little in the 
tvay of settling the point. This fact, therefore, appears to me 
not capable of being decided. There is no court wherein to 
try it. We do not acknowledge a court in America, and the 
Americans do not acknowledge a court here. Each govern- 
ment believes its own officer, or its own courts of inquiry ; and, 
if the belief of the American government is opposed to what 
ours believe, there is no decision but by an appeal to arms. 
But there is a much better way of settling the matter ; and 
that is, to say no more about it, which may be done without 
any stain upon the honour of either party. And this is the most 
desirable, if the supposed attack upon the Little Belt can pos- 
sibly be made, in some general settlement of disputes, to form 
a set-off against the affair of the Chesapeake. 

Yet, may it please your Royal Highness, there is a view of 
this matter which it is very necessary for you to take, and 
which will never be taken by any of the po'iiloal parasites in this 
country. We are accustomed to speak of this supposed attack 
upon the Little Belt, as if it had taken place oat at sea, and as 
if there had been no alleged provocation ever given to the 
American ships of war. But, sir, the Americans allege, that 
the Little Belt was found in their waters ; that she was one of 
a squadron that formed a sort of blockade of their coast ; that 
this squadron stopped, rummaged, and insulted their mer- 
chantmen ; and that, in many cases, it seized and carried away 
their own people out of their own ships within sight of their 
own shores. The way for us to judge of the feelings that 
such acts were calculated to inspire in the bosoms of the Ame- 
ricans, is, to make the cause our own for a moment ; to suppose 
an American squadron off our coast, stopping, rummaging, and 
insulting our colliers, and, in many cases, taking away their 
sailors to serve them ; to be exposed to the loss of life in that 
service ; and, at the very least, to be taken from their calling 
and their families and friends. 

Your Royal Highness would, I (rust, risk even your life rather 
than suffer this with impunity ; and you would, I am sure, look 
upon your people as unworthy of existence, if they were nol rea- 
dy to bleed in such a cause. Your Royal Highness sees, I am fully- 
persuaded, but one side of the question, with regard to America. 
The venal prints present you with publications made by the 
enemies of the men at present in power in America ; that is to 
say, by the opposition of that country. But the fact is, that 
all parties agree in their complaints against our seizure of their 
seamen, with instances of which their public prints abound. 



32 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

This is a thing so completely without a parallel, that one can 
hardly bring one's self to look upon it as a reality. For an Ame- 
rican vessel to meet a packet between Cork and Bristol, and take 
out some of her sailors, and carry them away to the East or 
West Indies to die or be kilted, is something so monstrous, that 
one cannot bring one's self to feel as if it were real. Yet, this is 
no more than what the Americans complain of; and if there 
be good ground, or only slight ground ; if there be any 
ground at all, for such complaint, the affair between the Ame- 
rican frigate and the Little Belt is by no means a matter to be 
wondered at. I beg your Royal Highness to consider how 
many families in the American states have been made unhappy 
by the impressment of American seamen ; how many parents 
have been thus deprived of their sons, wives of their husbands, 
and children of their fathers ; and, when you have so consider- 
ed, you will not, I am sure, be surprised at the exultation that 
appears to have been felt in America at the result of the affair 
with the Little Belt. 

As a specimen of the complaints of individuals upon this 
score, I here insert a letter from an unfortunate impressed Ame- 
rican, which letter I take from the New- York Public Advertiser 
of the 31st July: "Port Royal, Jamaica, 30 th June, 1311. 
Mr. Snowden, I hope you will be so good as to publish these 
few lines. I, Edwin Bouldin, was impressed out of the barque 
Columbus, of Elizabeth City, Captain Traftor, and carried on 
board his Britannic Majesty's brig Rhodian, in Montego B^y, 
commanded by Captain Mobary. He told me my protection 
was of no consequence, he would have me whether or not. I 
was born in Baltimore, and served my time with Messrs. Smith 
and Buchanan. I hope my friends will do something for me to 
get my clearance, for I do not like to serve any other country 
but my own, which I am willing to serve. I am now captain of 
the forecastle, and stationed captain of a gun in the waist. I am 
treated very ill because I will not enter. They request of me 
to go on board my country's ships to list men, which I refused 

to do, and was threatened to be punished for it. 1 remain a 

true citizen of the United States of America, Edwin Bouldin." 
This, may it please your Royal Highness, is merely a spe- 
cimen. The public prints in America abound with documents 
of a similar description ; and thus the resentment of the whole 
nation is kept alive, and wound up to a pitch hardly to be de- 
scribed. 

Astonishment is expressed by some persons in this country 
that the Americans appear to like the Emperor Napoleon bet- 
ter than our government : but if it be considered that the Em* 
peror Napoleon does not give rise to complaints such as those 
just quoted, this astonishment will cease. Men dislike those 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 33 

who do them injury, and they dislike those most who do them 
most injury. In settling the point, which is most the friend of 
real freedom, Napoleon or our government, there might, how- 
ever, be some difference of opinion in America, where the peo- 
ple are free to speak and write as well as to think, and where 
there are no persons whose trade it is to publish falsehoods. 
But, whatever error any persons might be led into upon this 
subject, the consequence to us would be trifling, were it not 
for the real solid grounds of complaiuts that are incessantly 
staring the American people in the face. There may be a very 
harsh despotism in France, for any thing that they know to the 
contrary ; though they are not a people to be carried away by 
mere names. They are a people likely to sit down coolly, and 
compare the present state of Fiance with its state under the 
Bourbons ; likely to compare the present situation of the great 
mass of the people with their former situation; and extremely 
likely not to think any the worse of Napoleon for his having 
sprung from parents as humble as those of their Jefferson or 
Madison. But, if they should make up their minds to a settled 
conviction of there being a military despotism in France, they 
will, though they regret its existence, dislike it less than they 
will any other system, from which they receive more annoy- 
an< e ; and in this they do no more than follow the dictates of 
human nature, which, in spite of all the wishes of man, will still 
continue the same. 

The disposition of the American people towards England and 
towards France is a matter of the greatest importance, and 
should, therefore, be rightly understood by your Royal High- 
ness, who has it in your power to restore between America and 
England that harmony, which has so long been disturbed, and 
which is so necessary to save the remains of freedom in the 
world. I here present to you, sir, some remarks of a recent 
date, (25th July,) published in an American print, called the 
" Baltimore American." You will see, sir, that the writer 
deprecates a war with England ; he does not deceive himself 
or his readers as to its dangers ; he makes a just estimate of the 
relative means of the two nations; and I think your Royal 
Highness will allow, that he is not ignorant of the real situation 
of England. I cannot help being earnest in my wishes that 
your Royal Highness would be pleased to bestow some atten- 
tion upon these remarks. They are, as a composition, not un- 
worthy of the honour ; but, what renders them valuable is, that 
they do really express the sentiments of all the moderate part 
of the people in America; they express the sentiments which 
predominate in the community, and upon which, your Royal 
Highness may be assured, the American government will act. 
" God forbid that we should have war with England, or any 

5 



3& Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

other nation, if we can avoid it. For I am not of the temper 
of that furious federalist, who would have unfurled the Ameri- 
can colours long ago against a less offender. I had rather see 
lier starry flag floating in the serenity of a calm atmosphere, than 
agitated and obscured in the clouds, the smoke, and flashes of 
war. But if Britain's unchangeable jealousy of the prosperity 
of others, her obdurate pride and enmity to us, should proceed 
upon pretence of retaliating upon what she has forced, to more 
violent and avowed attacks, I trust that your older and younger 
Americans will meet her with equal spirit, and give her blow 
for blow. I have never expected her to abstain from injury 
while our merchants had a ship, or our country a seaman, upon 
the ocean, by any sense of justice — but have trusted only to 
the adverse circumstances of her state, to restrain her violence 
and continue our peace. Heaven grant that it may be preserv- 
ed, and, if possible, without the distress of her own partly inno- 
cent people. But if her crimes will not allow it, if. urged by 
the malignant passions she has long indulged, and now heighten- 
ed by revenge, she throws off all restraint, and loosens war in all 
its rage upon us, then, as she has shed blood like water, give her 
blood to drink in righteous judgment. I know too well that 
we must suffer with her. Dreadful necessity only justifies the 
contest. I call you not, young Americans, to false glory, to 
spoil and triumph. You must lay down your lives, endure de- 
feat, loss, and captivity, as the varying fate of war ordains. But 
this must not appal you. Prepare for it with unsubmitting 
spirit ; renew the combat till your great enemy, like the whale 
of the deep, weakened with many wounds, yields himself up a 
prey to smaller foes, on his own element. This, by the order 
of Providence, has been the case before. When they possess- 
ed the sea in full security, our sailors issued out in a few small 
barks, mounted with the pieces dug from the rubbish of years, 
and scanty stores of ammunition, seized their trade, and baffled 
their power. From such beginnings grew a numerous shipping 
that fearlessly braved them on their own coasts, and on every 
sea ; that brought plenty into the land, and at once armed and 
enriched it. What shall prevent this again ? Have our ene- 
mies grown stronger, or we become weaker 1 Or has Heaven 
dropped its sceptre, and rules no more by justice and mercy ? 
We are now three times as many as in 1775, when we engaged 
them before. Our territory is greatly enlarged, and teems with 
new and useful products. Cotton, formerly known only to the 
domestic uses of a part of the people in two or three states, is 
now in sufficiency to supply clothing to all America, and from 
its lightness can be easi ly conveyed by land to every quarter. 
Wool, flax, and hemp, are furnished in increasing quantities 
every day. Machines for every work, manufactories for every 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. S3 

useful article, are invented and establishing continually. Large 
supplies of salt, sugar, and spirits are provided for in the west- 
ern countries, and can never be wanting on the sea coast. 
Lead, iron, powder, and arms, we have in abundance — parks of 
artillery for the field and fortifications — magazines and arsenals 
ready formed and increasing — a sufficient force of disciplined 
troops and instructed officers to become the basis of larger 
armies — a number of ships of war, with men and officers train- 
ed and prepared for naval enterprise — a people ready, in the 
spirit of independence, to rush against the enemy that wrongs 
and challenges them — a government formed, established, ope- 
rating all round, with every material for intelligence, direction 
and power — revenues, credit, confidence — good will at home 
and abroad — justice and necessity obliging, and Heaven, I hope, 
approving. It is a common opinion that our enemies are stron- 
ger ; but this appears an illusion from the fleets of other nations 
having been vanquished one by one, and left the ocean. Her 
strength has not increased in proportion. She indeed possesses 
a thousand ships of war, but no increase of people. Her com- 
merce is distressed, her manufactures pining, her finances sink- 
ing under irrecoverable debts, her gold and silver gone, her 
paper depreciating, her credit failing; depending upon other 
countries for food, for materials of manufacture, for supplies for 
her navy ; her wants increasing ; her means lessening. Every 
island and port she takes demands more from her, divides her 
force, increases her expense, adds to her cares, and multiplies 
her dangers. Her government is embarrassed, her people dis- 
tracted, her seamen unhappy, and ready to leave her every 
moment. The American commerce has been a staff* of support, 
but will now become a sword to wound her. Instead of sup- 
plying, we shall take her colonies. Her West India posses- 
sions will be able to contribute nothing ; their labours turned to 
raise bread. Their trade stopped as it passes our coast ; obliged 
to make a further division of her forces, her European enemies 
will seize the opportunity to break upon her there. Ireland is 
in a ferment, and must be watched. The East Indies bode a 
hurricane. She is exposed to injury in a thousand places, and 
has no strength equal to the extension. She may inflict some 
wounds on us, but they cannot go deep; while every blow she 
receives in such a crisis may go to her vitals. She will encoun- 
ter us in despair ; we shall meet her with hope and alacrity. 
The first occasion that has presented, proved this fact ; though 
the sottishness of her Federal Republican attempted to prevent 
the volunteer offering of our seamen to Decatur, as a proof of 
our inability to procure men. Had we impressed, a3 England 
does all her crews, what would it have proved by the samp 
logic? «Ai* Old Americas." 



36 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

Such, sir, are the sentiments of the people of America 
G eat pains are taken by our venal writers to cause il to be be- 
lieved, that the people are divided, and that Mr. Madison is in 
great disrepute. This, as I had the honour to observe to yoa 
before, is no more than a continuation of the series of deceptions 
practised upon this nation for the last twenty years with such 
complete and such fatal success. If, indeed, the Americans 
were to say as much of Ireland, there might be some justifica- 
tion for the assertion ; but there is no fact to justify the asser- 
tion as applied to America, in the whole extent of which we 
hear not of a single instance of any person acting in defiance of 
the law ; no proclamations to prevent the people from meeting; 
no calling out of troops to disperse the people ; no barracks 
built in any part of the country ; no force to protect the govern- 
ment but simply that of the law, and none to defend the country 
but a population of proprietors voluntarily bearing arms. There 
can be no division in America for any length of time ; for, the 
moment there is a serious division, the government must give 
way ; those who rule, rule solely by the will of the people : 
they have no power which they do not derive immediately 
from that source ; and, therefore, when the government of that 
country declares against us, the people declare against us in the 
same voice. 

The infinite pains which have been taken, in this country, to 
create a beiief, that the American President has been rendered 
unpopular by the publications of Mr. Smith, whom he had 
displaced, can hardly have failed to produce some effect upon 
the mind of your Royal Highness, especially as it is to be pre- 
sumed, that the same movers have been at work in all the ways 
at their commands I subjoin, for the perusal of your Royal 
Highness, an address to this Mr. Smith ; and, from it, you will 
perceive, that, by some of his countrymen at least, he is held in 
that contempt which his meanness and his impotent malice so 
richly merit. And, sir, I am persuaded, that his perfidy will 
meet with commendation in no country upon earth but this, 
and in this only amongst those who have always been ready 
to receive, with open arms, any one gniiiy of treason against hi* 
country, be bis character or conduct, in other respects, what it 
might. This person appears to have received no injury but 
what arose from the loss of a place which he was found unfit to 
fill, and from which he seems to have been removed in the gen- 
tlest possible manner. Yet, in revenge for this, he assaults the 
character of the President, he discloses every thing upon which 
he can force a misconstruction ; and, after all, after having said 
all he is able to say of the conduct of the President, whose con- 
fidence he seems to have possessed for nearly eight years, he 
brings forth nothing worthy of blame, except it be the indiscre- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 37 

don in reposing that very confidence. The publication of Mr. 
Smith is calculated to raise Mr. Madison and the American 
government in the eyes of the world ; for, how pure, how free 
from all fault must the government be, if a Secretary of State, 
who thus throws open an eight years' history of the cabinet, can 
tell nothing more than this man, animated by malice exceeding 
that of a cast-off coquet, has been able to tell ! 

The praises which have, in our public prints, been bestowed 
Upon the attempted mischief of this Mr. Smith, are by no 
means calculated to promote harmony with America, where 
both the government and the people will judge of our wishes by 
these praises. This man is notoriously the enemy of the 
American government, and, therefore, he is praised here. This 
is not the way to prove to the American government that we 
are its friends, and that it does wrong to prefer Napoleon to us. 
That we ous;ht to prefer the safety and honour of England to 
all other things is certain ; and, if the American government 
aimed any blow at these, it would become our duty to destroy 
that government if we could. But, sir, I suspect* that there 
are some persons in this country who hate the American 
government, because it suffers America to be the habitation of 
freedom. For this cause, I am satisfied, they would gladly, if 
they could, annihilate both government and people ; and, in my 
mind there is not the smallest doubt, that they hate Napoleon 
beyond all description less than they hate Mr. Jefferson or Mr. 
Madison. This description of persons are hostile to the exist- 
ence of liberty anywhere, and that, too, for reasons which every 
one clearly understands. While any part of the earth remains 
untrodden by slaves, they are not at heart's ease. They hate 
the Emperor Napoleon because they fear him ; but, they hate 
him still more because they see in his conquests a tendency to 
a reforming result. They are the mortal enemies of freedom, in 
whatever part of the globe she may unfurl her banners. No 
matter what the people are who shout for freedom ; no matter 
of what nation or climate ; no matter what language they speak ; 
and, on the other hand, the enemy of freedom is invariably, by 
these persons, hailed as a friend. Such persons are naturally 
averse from any measures that tend to restore harmony between 
this country and America, which they look upon as a rebel against 
their principles. What such persons would wish, is, that 
America should exclude not only from her ships, but also from 
her soil, all British subjects without distinction. This would 
exactly suit their tyrannical wishes. This would answer one 
of their great purposes. But this they never will see. No 
government in America would dare to attempt it. The very 
proposition would, as it ought to do, bring universal execration 
down upon the head ©f the proposer. 



S3 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

The charge against the Americans of entertaining a partiality 
for the emperor of France is one well worthy of attention ; 
because, if it were true, it wouM naturally have much weight 
with your Royal Highness. But, from the address to Mr. 
Smith, which I subjoin, you will perceive, that the same men 
in America, who complain the most loudly of Great Britain, 
condemn, in unqualified terms, the system of government exist- 
ing in France. And, which is of much more interest, Mr. 
Jefferson himself (supposed to be the great founder and encou- 
rager of the partiality for France) expresses the same sentiments, 
as appears from a letter of his, which I also subjoin. 

With these papers before you, sir, it will, I think, be impos- 
sible for you to form a wrong judgment as to the real sentiments 
of the American government and people ; and I am persuaded 
that you will perceive, that every measure, tending to widen the 
breach between the two countries, can answer no purpose but 
that of favouring the views of France. Even the Order in Coun- 
cil, issued on the 7th instant, will, I fear, have this tendency, 
while if tinnnot possibly do ourselves any good. The impossi- 
bility of supplying the West India Islands with lumber and 
provisions from our own North American provinces is notorious. 
The Order, therefore, will merely impose a tax upon the con- 
sumer, without shifting, in any degree worth notice, the source 
of the supply. And, indeed, the measure will serve to show 
what we mould do if we could. 

There is one point, relative to the intercourse between Ame- 
rica and England, of which I am the more desirous to speak, 
because I have heretofore myself entertained and promulgated 
erroneous notions respecting it : I allude to the necessity of 
the former being supplied with woollens by the latter. Whence 
this error arose, how it has been removed from my mind, and 
what is the real state of the fact, your Royal Highness will 
gather from the preface (hereunto subjoined) to an American 
work on sheep and wool, which I, some time ago, republished, 
as the most likely means of effectually eradicating an error 
which I had contributed to render popular, and the duration of 
which might have been injurious to the country. This work, 
if I could hope that your Royal Highness would condescend 
to peruse it, would leave no doubt in your mind, that America 
no longer stands in absolute need of English wool or woollens ; 
that, if another pound of wool, in any form, were never to be im- 
ported by her, it would be greatly to her advantage ; and, in 
short, that it comports with the plans of ber most enlightened 
statesmen, not less than with her interests and the interests of 
humanity, that she should no longer be an importer of this for- 
merly necessary of life. This, sir, is not one of the most 
rifling of the many recent revolutions in the affairs of the world : 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 39 

and it is one which, though wholly overlooked by such states- 
men as Lord Sheffield, is well worthy of the serious considera- 
tion of your Royal Highness. 

There is no way in which America is now dependent upon 
us, or upon any other country. She has every thing within 
herself that she need to have. Her soil produces all sorts of 
corn in abundance, and, of some sorts, two crops in the year 
upon the same ground. Wool and flax she produces with as 
much facility as we do. She supplies us with cotton. She 
has wine of her own production; and it will not be long before 
she will have the oil of the olive. To attempt to bind such a 
country in the degrading bonds of the custom bouse is folly, and 
almost an outrage upon nature. In looking round the world ; 
in viewing its slavish state ; in looking at the miserable victims 
of European oppression, who does not exclaim: " Thank God, 
she cannot so be bound !" A policy, on our part, that would 
have prolonged her dependence would have been, doubtless, 
more agreeable to her people, who, like all other people, love 
their ease, and prefer the comfort of the present day to the 
happiness of posterity. We might easily have caused Ameri- 
ca to be more commercial ; but of this our policy was afraid ; 
and our jealousy has rendered her an infinite service. By those 
measures of ours, which produced the former non-importation 
act, we taught her to have recourse to her own soil and her own 
hands for the supplying of her own wants; and then, as now, 
we favoured the policy of Mr. Jefferson, whose views have 
been adopted and adhered to by his successor in the presiden- 
tial chair. 

The relative situation 01 rife two countries is now wholly 
changed. America no longer stands in absolute need of our 
manufactures. We are become a debtor rather than a creditor 
with her ; and, if the present non-importation act continue in force 
another year, the ties of commerce will be so completely cut 
asunder as never more to have much effect. In any case, they 
never can be any thing resembling what they formerly were ; and, 
if we are wise, our views and measures will change with the change 
in the state of things. We shall endeavour, by all honourable 
means, to keep well with America, and to attach her to us by 
new ties, the ties of common interest and unclashing pursuits. 
We shall anticipate those events which nature points out — the 
absolute independence of Mexico, and, perhaps, of most of the 
West India islands. We shall (here invite her population to 
hoist the banners of freedom; and, by 'hat means, form a coun- 
terpoise to the powerof the emperor of France- This, at which 
I take but a mere glance, would be a work worthy of your Royal 
Highness, and would render your name great while vou live, and 
tlear to after ages. The times demand a great and far-seeing 



40 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

policy. This little island, cut off as she will be from all the 
world, cannot, I am persuaded, retain her independence, unless 
she now exert her energies in something other than expeditions to 
the continent of Europe, where every creature seems to be ar- 
rayed in hostility against her. The mere 'colonial system is 
no longer suited to her slate, nor to the state of Europe. A 
system that would combine the powers of England with those 
of America, and that would thus set liberty to wage war with 
despotism, dropping the custom house and all its pitiful regu- 
lations as out of date, would give new life to an enslaved world, 
and would ensure the independence of England for a time be- 
yond calculation. But, sir, even to deliberate upon a system 
of policy like this, requires no common portion of energy. 
There are such stubborn prejudices, and more stubborn private 
interests, to encounter and overcome, that I should despair of 
success without a previous and radical change of system at home ; 
but, satisfied I am, that, to produce that change, which would 
infallibly be the groundwork of all the rest, there needs no- 
thing but the determination, firmly adhered to, of your Royal 
Highness. 

To tell your Royal Highness what I expect to see take place 
would be useless : whether we are to hail n change of system, 
or are to lose all hope of it, cannot be l>ng in ascertaining. If 
the former, a short delay will be amply compensated by the 
event ; and, if the latter, the fact will always be ascertained too 
goon. I am, &c. &c. 

Wm. Cobbett. 

State Prison, Newgate, Thursday, 12th September, 1811. 



LETTER IV. 

TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 

Sir, 

In looking back to the real causes of the miseries which 
afflict this country, and of the greater miseries with which it 
appears to be threatened, your Royal Highness will, I am per- 
suaded, find, that one of the most efficient has been the prosti- 
tution of the Press. It is, on all hands, acknowledged, that the 
press is the most powerful engine that can be brought to operate 
upon public opinion, and upon the direction of public affairs ; 
and, therefore, when used to a bad end, the mischief it produces 
must necessarily be great. If left free, if is impossible that it 
can, upon the whole, produce harm ; because, from a free press 
free discussion will flow; and where discussion is free, truth 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 41 

will always prevail ; but where the press is in that state in 
which a man dares not freely publish his thoughts, respecting 
public men and public affairs, if those thoughts be hostile to men 
in power, the press must of necessity be an evil ; because, 
whiie it is thus restrained on that^sjde, there will never be want- 
ing slaves to use it in behalf of those who have the distribution 
oi the public money. Thus the public mind receives a wrong 
bias, and measures are approved of, which, in the end, prove de- 
structive, and which would never have met with approbation 
had every man been free to communicate his thoughts to the 
pubhc. 

Where there is no Press at all, or, which is the same thing 
as to politics, where ihere is a Licenser, or person appointed by 
the government to sanction writings previous to their publica- 
tion, the press does no good, to be sure, but neither does it any 
harm ; tor the public, well knowing the source of what they 
read, (and very little they will read.) suffer it to have no efi'ect 
upon their minds. They read a licensed newspaper as they 
would hear the charge of an accuser, who should tell them be- 
forehand that the accused party was not to be suffered to make 
any defence. But where the press is called free, and yet 
where he who writes with effect against men in power, or against 
public measures, is liable to be punished with greater severity 
than the major part of felons, the press must be an engine of in- 
calculable mischief; because the notion of freedom of the Press 
is still entertained by the greater part of readers, while there 
exists this terrific restraint on him who would write strongly, 
and, perhaps, effectually, against public men and public mea- 
sures, if it were not for the fear of almost certain ruin. 

Thus the press becomes a deceiver of the people ; it becomes 
prostituted to the most pernicious purposes. Few men of real 
talent will condescend to write with a bridle in their mouths ; the 
periodical press falls, for the far greater part, into the hands of 
needy adventurers, who are ever ready to sell their columns to 
the highest bidder; Falsehood stalks forth and ranges uncon- 
trolled, while Truth dares not show her face; and, if she ap- 
pear at all, it is under so thick a covering, in so crawling an at- 
titude, and with so many apologies to power, that she always 
disgraces her character, and not unfrequently injures her 
cause. 

Hence we mav trace all the severe blows which our country 
has suffered, and which have, at last, reduced us to a state 
which every man contemplates with a greater or less degree of 
apprehension. At the outset of the American war, Mr. 
Horne Tooke, who wrote against the project of taxing Ame- 
rica by force of arms, while she was unrepresented in Parlia- 
ment, was harassed with state prosecutions, and was pent up in 

6 



42 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 

a jail, while Dr. Johnson who wrote in defence of the project, 
and in whom venality and pride confended for the predomi- 
nance, was caressed and pensioned. The nation, by the means 
of a press thus managed, were made to approve of (he mea- 
sures against America ; they were made to expect the contest 
to oe of snort duration, ami the success to he complete. They 
were induced to give their approbation to the sending of Ger- 
man troops, Bnmswickers and Hessian mercenaries, to make 
war upon the fellow-subjects, the biettiren ot Englishmen. If 
we look back to that day, we shall see the periodical press urg- 
ing the nation on to the war, and promising a speedy and suc- 
cessful termination ol it. The Americans were represented as 
a poor, contemptible enemy ; as ragamuffins, without arms and 
without commanders; " destitute," as one writer asserted, "of 
money, of arms, of ammunition, of commanders, and, it they 
had all these, they bad not courage to apply them to their de- 
fence." Thus uere the people of England induced to give 
their approbation to the measures of the ministry ai the outset; 
and, by similar means, were they inveigled into a continuation 
of that approbation from one campaign to auother, ami were 
only to be undeceived by the capture of whole armies of Eng- 
lish troops by those whom they had been taught to despise. 

To the same cause may, in great part, be attributed the war 
against the republicans of France a war which has laid low so 
many sovereign princes, rooted out so many dynasiies, and 
which, however it may terminate, has already occasioned more 
misery in England than she ever betore experienced, if there 
had been no Press in England at the commencement ot the 
French revolution, the people of England would have formed 
their judgment upon what they satv, and what they felt ; or, 
if men had been, on boih sides of the question, free to publish 
their thoughts, the people, hearing all that could be said for, as 
well as against, the cause of France, would have come to a de- 
cision warranted by truth and reason. But while those who 
wrote against the republicans of France, and urged the nation 
on to a war against them, were at perfect liberty to make use of 
what statements or arguments (hey those for that purpose, those 
who wrote on the other side were compelled to smother the 
best part of what tney might have urged, that is to say, they 
could not write with effect ; or, if they did, they exposed them- 
selves to ruin, and, perhaps, to premature death ; for 
there are not many bodies able to endure sentences of long 
imprisonment, without receiving injuries that are seldom over- 
come. Mr. Gilbert Wakefield lived out his two years in Dor- 
chester jail ; buthe did not for many months survive the effects 
of his imprisonment, leaving a wife and family to starve, had not 
iiis virtues bequeatned tnein friends. Mr. Wakefield's crime 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 43 

was the answering the triumphant answering of a Bishop, who 
had wrilt n against the republicans of France, and the tendency 
of whose publication was to encourage the people of England to 
go on with the war then begun. After the example made of 
Mr. Wakefield, after such a rpbj to his pamphlet, the war 
would, of course, meet with few literary opponents, or, if any, 
so shy and so timid as to produce little or no effect ; while, on 
the other side, the advocates of the war, with nothing to fear, 
and every thing to hope in the way of personal advantage, could 
not fail to succeed in persuading the people, that to push on the 
war was just and necessary. The delusion was kept up through 
the same means. In spite of discomfiture and disgrace ; in 
spite of facts that might have been supposed almost suffi- 
cient to enlighten a born idiot, they weie made to hope on 
from campaign to can piign ; and, though they saw league alter 
league dissolved, the> were still induced to give their approba- 
tion to new leagues. Without a press, such as I have described, 
this would have been impossible. A total dest ruction of the 
press, or the establishment of a licenser, would have prevent- 
ed the possibility of such delusion ; because, then, the people 
would have judged from what they saw and what \h.ey felt ; they 
would have judged from the actual events of the war, and from 
the effects which the war, as it proceeded, produced upon 
themselves. But by the means of the press, such as I have 
described it, by the means of a succession of falsehoods, commg 
upon the h^els of one another so quick as to leave little time 
for reflection, the people were hurried on from one stage to 
another of the war, till, at last, they saw no way of retreating ; 
and thousands, when they saw, in the end, the fatal consequen- 
ces of the measures they had been so zealous in supporting, 
continued, rather than acknowledge themselves dupes, the par- 
tisans of those by whom they had been deceived ; and so they 
continue to this day. 

But, sir, amongst all the instances in which this prostituted 
press has abused the public ear, I know of no one where it 
has worked with more zeal, or more apparent effect, than with 
regard to the present dispute with the American Stales. The 
grounds of comptainf on the part of America have been sedu- 
lously kept out of sight ; her remonstrances, against what no 
one can deny to be a violation of her rights, have been con- 
stantly represented as demands made upon us to give up some 
of our rights ; her people have been represented as being on 
our side, and against their government ; and, last of all, when 
this prostituted press can no longer disguise the fact that the 
Americans are preparing for war against us, it represents the 
American legislature as well as the President as acting under 
the influence of France ; as being instruments in the hands of 



44 Letters of William Cohbett, Esq. 

Buonaparte. And by these means it has drawn the public 
along, from stage to stage, in an approbation of the measures^ 
which have now brought us to the eve of a new war, in addition 
to that which we find sufficiently burdensome and calamitous, 
and to which there is no man who pretends to see the prospect 
of a termination. 

I have before taken the liberty to address your Royal High- 
ness upon this subject ; and if I now repeat, in part, what 
I have already said, my excuse must be, that the state of 
things is now more likely, in my opinion, to excite attention 
to my observations. Under this persuasion, and in the hope 
of being yet able to contribute something towards the preven- 
tion of a war with the American States, I shall here again take 
a view of the whole of the question, and shall then offer to your 
Royal Highness such observations upon the subject as appear 
to me not to be unworthy of your attention. 

There are two great points upon which we are at issue 
with America : The Orders in Council, and the Impressment 
of American Smmevv. The dispute with that country has late- 
ly tinned chiefly upon the former ; but it should be made known 
to your Royal Highness, that the latter, as I once before had 
the honour to observe to you, is the grievance that clings most 
closely to the hearts of the people, so many of whom have to 
weep the loss of a husband, a brother, or a son, of whom they 
have been bereft by our impressments. 

In proceeding to discuss the first of these points, I will first 
state to your Royal Highness how the Americans are affected. 
by our Orders in Council. An American ship, though naviga- 
ted by American citizens, and laden with Indian corn, or any 
other produce of America, bound to any part of France, or her 
dominions, is, if she chance to be seen by one of our ships of 
war or privateers, brought into any one of our ports, and there 
she is condemned, ship and cargo, and the master and seamen 
are sent adrift, to get back to America as they can, or to starve 
in our streets. The same takes place with regard to an Ame- 
rican vessel bound from France, or her dominions, to America. 
These captures take place on any part of the ocean, and they 
have often taken place at the very mouth of the American ports 
and rivers ; and, as great part of the crews of vessels so captur- 
ed are taken out by the captors to prevent a rescue, the sailors 
so taken out are frequently kept at sea for a long while, and, in 
many cases, they have lost their lives during such, their deten- 
tion, which to them must necessarily be, in all cases, a most 
irksome and horrible captivity. 

That this is a great injury to America nobody can deny, and, 
therefore, the next point to consider is, whether we have any 
right to inflict it upon her ; whether we have a right thus to 



Letters of William Cobbclt, Esq. 45 

seize the property of her merchants, and to expose to hardship, 
peril, and death, the persons of her sailors. And here, sir, 
I have no hesitation in sa\ ing, that onr conduct is wholly un- 
justifiable, according to all the hitherto known and settled rules 
of the neutral law of nations, even as recognised by ourselves. 
For never until since the year 1806, that is to say, till since 
the issuing; of the Orders in Council, did England pretend to 
have a right to make prize of a neutral ship, even carrying 
enemy's goods to or from an enemy's port, contenting herself 
with seizing the cargo and suffering the slii^to go free. And, 
as to the seizure of the goods of a neutral, on board a neutral 
ship, the very attempt to set up the pretension of a right to do 
that would have marked out the author as a madman. Indeed, 
such a pretension puts an end to all idea of neutrality ; it at 
once involves every maritime nation in every war that shall exist 
between any other maritime nations ; and is, therefore, a pre- 
tension so tyrannical in its principle, and so desolating in its 
consequences, as to be abhorred by all but those who delight in 
the troubles and miseries of mankind, and the waste of human 
life. 

Conscious that general usage and reason are against us, we 
ground our justification upon a rule of war, which says that one 
belligerent oraj retaliate upon another. It is not, for instance, 
held to be right, to kill prisoners made in war; but, if our ene- 
my kill the nrisoners he takes from us, we may, according to 
this rule, kill the prisoners we take from him ; though, e\en in 
that case, not exceeding the number that he has killed belong- 
ing to us. No rule of retaliation could apply to the case before 
us We were not at war with America. She had seized no 
ships belonging to England. She had not been guilty, and she 
was not charged with being guilty, of any breach of the laws of 
neutrality But, if she had been guilty of no offence, France 
had, and the retaliation was to fall upon America. 

This leads me to solicit the patient attention of your Royal 
Highness to the History of he Orders in Council, which Or- 
ders we have always called retaliatory measures The Empe- 
ror Napoleon issued two Decrees, the first from Berlin, and 
the second from Milan' These Decrees were levelled against 
the trade carried on between neutrals and England, or, rather, 
between America and England, America being;, in fact, the 
only neutral then left. The Decrees were a gross violation 
of the neutral rights of America. Napoleon had not, indeed, 
the power of enforcing them ; but he would have done it if he 
could ; and the very attempt, the very existence of the De- 
crees, was a violation of the heretofore acknowledged rights of 
neutrals. Such was the conduct of Napoleon. We issued 
what we called Orders in Council, the nature and effect of 



46 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

which I bave above described. We have contended, that these 
Orders were in the way of retaliation for the French Decrees. 
This the Americans have always treated as an outrage on every 
principle of justice. They have, as well they might, denied 
that we have a right to act with injustice towards them, upon 
the pretence, true or false, that another power has acted with 
injustice towards them. They have scoffed at such a princi- 
ple of action; but they have, at the same time, observed, that, 
even if this monstrous principle were admitted, we should find 
in it no justificati<jn of our Orders, the commencement of 
which they trace to a date prior to that of the first of JSapo- 
leons Decree*. 

The first of this series of measures, of which America 
complains, was adopted by our government, and that, too, 
un ier the administration of those who are now OUT. It was 
a blockade of the entrances of the E us, the Weser, the Elbe, 
and the T-ave, in consequence of the king of Prussia having 
taken possession of various parts of the Electorate of Hanover, 
and having, as was asserted in Mr. Fox's letter, done other 
things injurious to English commerce. Thus this dispute with 
America grew, in part at least, out of the connexion with 
Hanover. This regulation, against which the Americans im- 
mediately protested as being a gross violation of their neutral 
rights, was dated on the 8th of April, 1806. Before the month 
of November in that year, Napoleon had put an end to all dis- 
putes between us and the king of Prussia, by attacking, defeat- 
ing, and overthrowing the king of Prussia, and taking posses- 
sion of Prussia itself as well as Hanover. Being; at Berlin, he, 
on the 21st of November, 1806, issued that Decree before 
spoken of ; called the Berlin Decree This measure he called 
a measure of retaliation for our regulations against neutrals. 
We followed him with more restrictions upon neutrals, or, rather, 
upon America, under the form of Orders in Council, and these 
we declared to be measures of retaliation for the Berlin Decree. 
Then came Napoleon with his Decree from Milan, as a retali- 
ation for these Orders. And we have followed him with Or- 
der upon Order since that time, calling them measures of leta- 
liation. 

America complained of both the belligerents, and was told 
by each that he had been compelled to deviate from the law of 
nations in his own defence, and that he only wished to reduce 
his adversary to the necessity of returning to an observance of 
the rules of that law. We, more especially, expressed our sor- 
row at being obliged to give annoyance to neutral commerce ; 
and we said, we were so anxious to see this obligation at an end, 
that we would waive the point of priority of violation, aud would 
repeal our Orders, step by step, with the repeal of the French De- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq* 4? 

trees; that is to say, that whenever Napoleon was ready to 
be^in trie woik of repealing, we would begin too, and keep 
pace with him, until the whole mass of obnoxious Decrees and 
Orders were removed. 

As neither did begin, however, America fell upon a mode of 
inducing one or the other, or both, to do it by a temptation to 
their interests. She passed an act, in May. 18 iO, whit h pro- 
vided that, if neither ot the helligerents had repealed before 
the ist ot November, in that year, the ships and goods of both 
should be excluded from her ports and harbours ; that if both 
repealed, the ships and goods of both should continue to be 
admitted ; that if one repealed, and the other did not, the ships 
and goods of the non- epealing nation should be excluded. 

Napoleon, in the month ot Juiy, Id 1 0, signified to the Ame- 
rican minister at Paris, that his Decrees wen repealed, and 
that the repeal would be acted upon on the appointed 1st of 
November Whereupon the President, as the act required, 
declared the fart of the repeal, ami declared, at the same time, 
that unless England nail repealed her Orders before the Ist of 
February, 18,1.1, her ships and goods would from that day be 
exclmied. England did not repeal, and her ships and goods 
have been excluded accordingly, to the woful experience of 
our wool-growers ami manufacturers, and to the infinite satisfac- 
tion, doubtless, of the emperor of Frame. 

The reasons we have given for not repealing, are, first, that 
Napoleon has not repented ; and, second, that if he had, he 
has erected the continental sj stem in the stead of his Decrees. 
As to the first of these reasons, it is telling the American go- 
vernment that it utters wilful falsehoods, or that it is so blind 
and foolish as not to be able to ascertain a fact of such import- 
ance to the interests of the nation. And, as to the latter rea- 
son, it is, in fact, calling upon America to compel Napoleon to 
alter his inlernal laws in favour of English goods ; or, it is tell- 
ing her, that we will continue to punish her if she does not do 
that, or join us in the war. America is satisfied that Napoleon 
has repealed his decrees ; she has declared it through her mi- 
nister here, and through her P cedent in his proclamations and 
his messages to the Congress; and still we deny the fact. This 
is a ground of action that no nation will endure, unless it be 
wholly destitute of spirit, or of the means ot obtaining redress 
or revenge. 

The matter is now taken up by the Congress, to whose pro- 
ceedings therein I will speak, when I have submitted to your 
Royal Highness a statement of the nature of the other great 
point in dispute ; namely, the impressment of seamen out of 
American ships by our ships of mar. 

Our ships of war, whew they meet an American vessel at sea, 



48 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

board her, and take out of her, by force, any seamen whom our 
officers assert to be British subjects. There is no rule by 
which they are bound. They act at discretion; and the con- 
sequence is, that great numbers of native Americans have been 
thus impressed, and great numbers of them are now in our 
navy. The total number so held at any one time cannot, per- 
haps, be ascertained ; but, from a statement published in Ame- 
rica, it appears, thai Mr. Lyman, the late Consul here, staled 
the number, about two years ago, at fourteen thousand. That 
many of these men have died on board of our ships, that many 
have been wounded, that many have been killed in action, and 
that many have been worn out in the service, there can be no 
doubt. Some obtain their release through the application of the 
American consul here, and of these the sufferings have, in 
many instances, been very great. There have been instances 
where men have thus got free after having been flogged through 
the fleet for desertion. 

But it has been asked, whether we are not to take our sai- 
lors where we find them. To which America answers, yes, 
but take only your own; "take," said Mr. Lyman, <k your 
whole pound of flesh, but take not a drop of blood." She says, 
that she wishes not to have in her ships any British sailors ; and 
she is willing to give them up, wherever the fact of their being 
British sailors can be proved. Let them, she says, be brought 
before any magistrale, or any public civil authority, in any of 
your own ports, at home or abroad, and she is willing to abide 
by the decision. But let not men be seized in her ships upon 
the high seas, (and sometimes at the mouth of her own rivers,) 
where there is nobody to judge between the parties, and where 
the British officer going on board is at once accuser, witness, 
judge, and captor. Let not your officer, who cannot know the 
men, except by mere accident, be taken to be a better judge 
of the fact than the commander of the ship in which they sail. 
Let it not be admitted, that he is never to be believed, and that 
even the protections given by the American authorities are to 
be received as falsehoods, and disregarded accordingly. 

We have hitherto refused to alter our practice. The griev- 
ance has been growing greater and greater, as it necessarily 
must with the continuance of the war, until, at last, the number 
of persons impressed, the number of sufferers, and the corres- 
ponding number of complaining parents, wives, and children, 
in America, are become so great, that the whole country cries 
out War! War! or an end to impressment! 

I beg your Royal Highness to consider what must be the 
feelings of a people at the existence of a grievance like this; 
and, if you do seriously consider it, I am sure you will see 
cause to despise those parasites of the press io England, who 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 49 

are using their utmost endeavours to persuade the public, that 
the American Congress are, in their resentful language against 
England, " stimulated by the intrigues of Buonaparte." As 
if the intrigues of Buonaparte were necessary to make an assem- 
bly of real representatives of the American people feel for the 
ruin of so many hundreds of (heir merchants, ami for the great- 
er sufferings of so many thousands of their seamen and of the 
relations of those seamen ! As if the intrigues of Buonaparte 
were necessary to make such an assembly feel at seeing their 
country, whose independence was purchased with the blood of 
their fathers, treated, at sea, as if it were still no more than a co- 
lony ! As if to feel acutely, and to express themselves strongly 
upon such an occasion, it were necessary for them to be insti- 
gated by the intrigues ot a foreign power! 

Having now, with as much clearness as I have been able to 
combine with brevity, submitted to your Royal Highness the 
nature and extent of the complaints which America prefers 
against England, I next proceed to state to you what has been 
done by the Congress, in the way of obtaining redress for those 
grievances : after which will naturally come such observations 
as I think not unworthy of your serious attention, relative to the 
consequences of a war with a country which, until tliis moment, 
the prostituted press of this country has studiously treated with 
contempt* 

It is necessary to begin here by observing on the means 
which this press has, on this subject, made use of to deceive the 
public. The writers to whose labours I allude, were employ- 
ed during the last spring and summer in representing Mr .Ma- 
dison as a falling character: they told us that Mr. Smith's 
disclosures had ruined the reputation of the former ; they ex- 
pressed their opinion that he would never more show his face 
in the Congress ; and the people of America they represented 
as being decidedly against a war with England. So that the 
public here were led to believe, that, let our ministers do what 
they might with regard to America, there was no danger to be 
apprehended. I took the liberty, many months ago, to endea- 
vour to guard your Royal Highness against the adoption of 
opinions founded upon such statements ; and I then expressed 
to you my firm conviction, that an immediate change of con- 
duct on our part, towards America, was necessary to present 
a war with that country. When the President's speech reached 
us, breathing a spirit of resentment, and suggesting the propri- 
ety of arming, these yelpers of the venal press, as if all set on 
by one and the same halloo, and as if forgetting their predic- 
tions about his fall, flew at him in a strain of abuse such I 
have seldom witnessed, except when I myselChave had the ho- 
aour to be thought by their setters on an object worthy of their 

7 






&0 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

mercenary malice. They likened the style of his speech to 
that of the Wabash and Shawanese Savages; they called him 
a tool of Buonaparte ; they represented hiin as a mean, low- 
minded, ignorant man ; and I have never heard that any one 
of them has been called to account for this conduct. They 
soon found, however, what every man of sense anticipated, 
that the sentiments of the President's speech were but a faint 
sketch of the picture to be finished by the Congress, who, 
therefore, next became an object of attack. But, by 
degrees, as the accounts of the proceedings of the - Con- 
gress have reached us, these deceivers of the English people 
have grown more measured in their abuse. At the arrival of 
every new menace from the city of Washington, they have, as 
is in the nature of the true-bred bully, become more and more 
gentle ; fill, at last, they have softened down into a tone of ci- 
vility. They do not " now make a mockery" of war with 
America ; they even hope that it may be prevented ; and they 
" trust empty punctilio will not stand in the way of reconcili- 
ation ;" that very reconciliation which they had done all ia 
their power to prevent. 

But, still sticking to their character of deceivers, they are 
now employed in garbling the debates in the Congress. They 
are employed in suppressing the sentiments of those members 
who are advocates for a resistance of England, and in puffing 
forth the speeches of those who are on the opposite side. The 
speech of one gentleman in particular, Mr. Randolph, they 
praise beyond bounds, for which, however, they have one 
reason, which they do not avow; and, which, as it is somewhat 
curious, I will, even at the expense of a digression, make a sub- 
ject of remark. 

In reading the speech of this gentleman, as copied into some 
of our newspapers, I could not help wondering that a thing so 
incoherent and so weak should have called forth the praises 
even of these prints. I wondered that even they should de- 
cribe such at once wild and vapid matter as " full of acuteness 
and sarcasm.' 1 I had, indeed, frequently heard them bestow 
encomiums on the speeches of Lord Liverpool and Mr. Perce- 
val ; but any thing so inappropriate as this I had never heard 
them hazard before. W 7 hen, however, I came to see the speech 
itself, in the American newspapers, and found that / myself 
had been an object of Mr. Randolph's attack, the wonder ceased. 
It was no longer a matter of surprise, that the mercenary tribe 
had discovered in the speech of Mr. Randolph every thing 
characteristic of acuteness, and profundity, and public spirit. 
But, really, it was dealing very unfairly with their readers not 
to treat them to a participation in the enjoyment of these sarcas- 
tic passages, especially when they would not thereby have di- 
minished their own j and it is not a little surprising, that they 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 51 

should, in copying the speech of their champion, have taken 
the pains to exclude precisely these passages. Since, however, 
they have done if, I will fill up the gap. 

Mr. Randolph had, it seems, been accused of not being a 
republican, and of being devoted to England ; in the way of 
answer to which he makes the following personal remarks and 
allusions. '« I do not like this republicanism which is support- 
by Mr. Adams on this si ie the Atlantic, and by Cobtet on 
the other, who, if he could break jail, would assist in revolu- 
tionizing New-England. Republicanism of John Adams, and 
William Cobbett, par nobilefratrum, untted now as in 1798. 
Formerly, Mr. Adams and Porcupine would have called me a 
Frenchman; now, if worthy of notice, both would call -ii-aa 

Englishman From whom," says he, in anollier pari of 

his speech, " come these charges? From men escaping from 
jails in Europe, and here teaching our fathers and son* tfaete 
political duties." Now, in the first place, 1 have great satisfac- 
tion in learning from such unquestionable authority thai I agree 
in political opinions with Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams was one of 
those who, at the earliest date, made a conspicuous figure in 
the cause of no taxation without representation ; he eras Ane- 
rican minister at the Hague, afterwards at Paris, aftepwarda in 
England ; he was Vice President of the United States ail the 
time that General Washington was President ; he was after- 
wards himself President of the United States : and havmg been, 
at the next election, supplanted by Mr. Jefferson, he has, sin ce 
his retirement, had the rare virtue to acknowledge, upon further 
reflection, that the system of his successor was the most ad- 
vantageous to his country ; and, upon that ground, to give that 
system all the support in his power. He lives now in the 
simplest style, at the age of about seventy-five, in his native 
state of Massachusetts, beloved and venerated by all around 
him, and without having, or being suspected of having, added 
to his own private means a single dollar of the public money. 
Such is the man whose opinions 1 am now charged with holding, 
and in company with whom I am said to have changed my for- 
mer opinions as to American politics ; upon which I can only 
say that no effort of mine shall be wanting to render myself 
worthy of such an honour. As to what Mr- Randolph says 
about my being in jail, that is a mode of answering which he 
must have learnt from our mercenary prints. That is the way 
that they answer my arguments. But this gentleman's general 
accusation against those who have been in jails in Europe; his 
objection to their teaching politics to the people of America; 
these are worthy of some attention. For the present, laying 
my own case out of the question, I would, if I were within his 
hearing, ask this gentleman how long it is since the bare cir- 



-52 Letters of William Cohbett, Esq. 

cumstance of having been imprisoned in a jail has been looked 
upon as suffioiehl to disqualify a .nan lor leaching political du- 
ties. Ii seems lo me, on the contrary! that the cucumstunce 
ought, if such man has surlered on account oi his politics; lobe 
considered as one qualification at least, seeing that it must ne- 
cessarily have impressed strongly upon his mind the natine and 
effect of the political institution under which he has suffered; 
But, surely, Mr. Kandolpn cannot have been serious ; tor he 
boasts of being descended from the country of Hampden and 
Sidney, and of having imbibed his political principles iron) them. 
Indeed ! Why then he should have recollected, that the for- 
mer, if he had not, in a glorious figiit lor the liberties of Eng- 
land, died in the held, would have perished on the scaffold ; and, 
that the latter, alter having, for a long while, inhabited a jail, 
did actually lose his life under the hands of the executioner. 
And if the brave Sidney, who was tound guilty by a packed 
jury, and who, when condemned by a corrupt judge, stretched 
out his arm to him and bade him feel his pulse to see it he 
trembled ; if this undaunted advocate ot freedom had escaped 
before the day of execution, and arrived in America, would Mr. 
Randolph, had he been then living, have objected to him as a 
teacher of political duties merely on the ground of his having 
escaped from a jail? And Prynu, who was persecuted by the 
then attorney general of England, and who, by the tyrannical 
judges of that day, those base instruments of a corrupted court; 
if he, who was imprisoned, and fined, and pilloried, and mutilated, 
almost beyond mortal endurance, and who, after all, lived to 
bring one of his judges to the block; if Pryon, who was thus 
punished on a charge of seditious libel, had " broke jail," this 
very jail of Newgate, where he was at first confined ; il he had 
" broke jail," and gone to America, would Me. Randolph's 
forefathers, of whom he boasts, have objected to such a teach- 
er of political duties? Why, though, perhaps, Mr. Randolph 
does not know it, William Prim was prosecuted for seditious 
libel, and was confined m this very j il of Newgate loo, though 
his time here was rendered short bv a jury who had the sense 
to know their duty, and the courage (o resist the browbeating ot 
a corrupt political judge; ana was William Penn thought an 
unfit teacher of political dunes? i am pleading here, not my 
own cause, but that of many others, who are now in America, 
and who have been in jails in Europe. This, however, is unne- 
cessary ; for it is a fact, and a fact, too, which your Royal 
Highness should know, that these gentlemen have been receiv- 
ed there, not as Mr. Randolph seems to have wished, but 
with kindness, respect, and honour. Mr. Emmet ami Mr. 
Sampson are amongst the first advocates at the bar in New- 
¥ork, and their associate, Dr. M'Neven, ia at the head, or 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 53 

nearly so, of the physicians. The instance of Mr. Duane is 
worthy of particular notice. He was a printer at Calcutta, 
where his types and property were destroyed, himself thrown 
into a guard house, and soon afterwards shipped off to Europe. 
He found his way to America, and fo his pen England owes no 
inconsiderable portion of the hostility that has since existed 
against her in that country. I can remember the time when he, 
anil he alone, as far as the power of the press went, kept alive the 
opposition to the English interest. All the other writers seemed 
to be weary of the strife ; but his inextinguishable remembrance 
of the past sustained him under ail difficulties, and he finally saw 
that cause triumph, of which, at one time, every body else 
seemed to despair. He, above all others, has been a teacher 
of " political duties," as Mr. Randolph calls them ; and, as- 
suredly, it" success be a proof of merit, few men ever had so 
much. Ii Mr Finnerty were to exchange a solitary cell in 
Lincoln jail, to which he has been consigned, at a distance from 
his friends, and from his means of obtaining a livelihood ; if he 
were to change that situation for the free air of America, leaving 
his present dreary abode to the occupancy of the next man, if 
another such man should be found, to comment on the charac- 
ter oi Casllereagh ; ii Mr. Finnerty were to make this exchange, 
does Mr. Randolph imagine, that the people of America would 
regard him, who has given such proofs of his talents and inte- 
grity, as a very unfit teacher of political duties? And now, as 
to myself, it appears to me, that Mr. Randolph would have 
better consulted the dignity of his situation as a legislator, if he 
had answered my arguments rather than made an allusion to 
the situation in which he knew me to be. I had not given hiui 
any offence ; I had not even named him in any of my articles on 
American affairs. I had used the best of my humble endea- 
vours to prevent the necessity of, and to remove all pretence 
for those warlike measures, of which he appears to have been 
so determined an opponent ; and, surely, if I did happen to dif- 
fer from him in opinion, the circumstance of my being in a jail 
was not to deprive me of all right to exercise my judgment, and 
to put the result upon paper. Such a deprivation made no 
part of my sentence. Judges Grose and Elienborougb, and 
Bailey and Le Blanc did, indeed, sentence me to be imprisoned 
for two years in Newgate, where Prynn had been before me; 
but they did not sentence me to be blindfolded and have my 
hands tied all the time; they did, indeed, further adjudge that 
a thousand pounds should be taken from me, and paid to the 
king, but they did not condemn me to be bereft of my reason ! 
they did, indeed, sentence me to give bail for ray good beha- 
viour for the further term of seven years, making altogether 
much more than the average calculation of the duration of man"* 



5i Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

life, but they passed no sentence of imprisonment on my 
thoughts. Nor did they, in their sentence, include a prohibi- 
tion against my thoughts finding their way to America ; no, nor 
against their producing an impression there proportioned to their 
correctness and to the force with which they might be express- 
ed. Therefore, I presume, it will be thought that Mr. Ran- 
dolph censured me without cause, though, I must confess, that 
his censure is more than compensated for by the information 
that he has given me and the world, that my efforts, as to Ame- 
rica, coincide with those of Mr. Adams ; and, in return, I will 
inform him, that he has the honour to agree, not only in senti- 
ments, but also in expressions, with every literary slave in the 
British dominions, with every one whose hand is like the beg- 
gar's dish, and whose columns have a price as regular, though 
not, perhaps, so moderate, as stalls at a market, or beds at an 
inn. 

From this digression I should now return to the Proceedings 
in the American Congress, a regular account of which I should 
lay before your Royal Highness ; but the performance of this 
duty must, for want of time, be deferred till my next. 

I am, &c. Sic* 

Wm. Cobbett. 

Sfate Prison, Newgate, 30th January, 1812. 



LETTER V. 

TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 

Sir, 

I now proceed to place before your Royal Highness an 
account of the measures proposed by the American Congress 
to be adopted, in consequence of the refusal of our government 
to comply with the demands of the American President, rela- 
tive to the Orders in Council and the impressment of Ameri- 
can Seamen. 

The lower house of Congress began by receiving and ap- 
proving of a Report of their committee of foreign relations, 
which report I subjoin to this letter. That report can be re- 
garded in no other Hght than as a manifesto against England. 
It sets forth the grounds of complaint ; and it then recommends 
preparations for war. 

This recommendation has been acted upon, and prepara- 
tions for war are actually going: on. An act was brought for- 
ward immediately for raising a body of regular troops ; and, 
after much deliberation, this act appears to have been passed. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 55 

(he number of troops amounting to 25,000 men. And, here, 
let me beg your Royal Highness to observe, that these troops 
are to have a bounty in lands, of which every man is to receive 
160 acres. These men will have the soil to fight for; their 
motive of action will not be of that vague and indefinite kind 
which is held forth by Colonel Dillon, in his work addressed, 
as he says, by permission, to you That these troops are not 
intended for purposes of mere defence will be obvious to your 
Royal Highness; but of the way in which they will probably 
be employed I shall speak by and by. 

Beside these, the President is to be enabled to employ fifty 
thousand volunteers, whose services may, at any time, be ex- 
tended beyond the limits of the United States, if the parties 
volunteering choose to be so employed. 

The Militia, consisting of all the able men in the country, 
without any exception as to rank or degree, the President may 
call out in such numbers as may be found necessary. 

Some national ships are to be built ; those that they now 
have are to be repaired and armed ; gunboats are to be fitted 
out; and the merchant ships are to be permitted to arm and 
to defend themselves at sea. But the greatest of the mari- 
time measures is, a high reward to be offered to any A ieri- 
cans on board British ships, and to the associates of such Ame- 
ricans, in case of their bringing in to an American port any 
British ship of war. This is, in fact, a reward offered to the 
crews of British ships to desert to the enemy, and to carry 
their ship with them, upon the same principle, I presume, that 
our consul at Valencia, and our commandant at Gibraltar are, 
in our public prints, said to have offered so much a man to 
each soldier of the French army that should desert to them, 
and so much in addition provided the deserter brought his 
horse. Whether this be consistent with morality, I shall not, 
at present inquire ; but of this I am very sure, that the mea- 
sure adopted, or proposed to be adopted, by the Congress, is 
of a very dangerous tendency, especially when we consider 
how large a portion of Americans and other foreigners we have 
on board of our ships. 

These measures are not, sir, to be considered as the mea- 
sures of a faction, whose object, in getting the nation into a 
war, is to create the means of fattening themselves, and their 
families, and dependants, and supporters ; they are the mea- 
sures of the people of America, speaking through the lips of 
their real representatives, unbribed themselves, and chosen 
without the aid of bribery ; and they arise out of the grounds 
of complaint against us, which I before had the honour to 
lay before your Royal Highness. The prostituted press 
of London has, for many months past, been endeavouring 



56 Lelters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

to make its deluded readers believe, that the partisans of 
England, in America, were the most numerous; and that, if 
the government engaged in war against us, the people would 
turn against it, and that a separation of the States would 
take place. I endeavoured to guard the public, anil your Koy- 
al Highness, against these delusive statements; and we now see 
Jhat, though there are two parties in America, both parties have 
united against us, with as much cordiality as the two parties in 
our House of Commons united against Mr. Madock's motion of 
the 1 1th of May, 1K09, for an inquiry into the sale of seats i» 
that honourable house, and, surely, an union more cordial than 
that has seldom been heard of between opponents of any de- 
scription. Those members of the congress who have voted 
against the war with England are so ie\v, and those who have 
spoken against it, are, for the most part, so notoriously contemp- 
tible, that the measure may be regarded as having been adopt- 
ed without opposition. The Congress has not been long elect- 
ed ; they have just received the instructions of their constitu- 
ents; and it will not be long before those constituents will again 
have an opportunity of deciding upon their merits or demerits. 
None of those members hold officer of any sort; none of them 
have pensions or sinecures, and none of them can touch, in any 
way, a farthing of the money which may be expended in eon- 
sequence of their votes for the creation of any office. This 
being the case, the voice of the Congress must be the voice of 
the nation; and it would be delusion unexampled to believe that 
the people of America are not entering heartily iuto this 
war. 

Our prostituted press, unable anv longer to keep up the de- 
lusion of the disinclination of the American nation to resist by 
force of arms, now tell the public, that the war will not be of 
long duration; and this prediction they found chiefly upon 
the supposition, that America has not the pecuniary means 
sufficient for the carrying on of war. 

The collection of taxes is, indeed, what the Americans do 
not like ; but, it does not follow, that, for a great purpose, they 
would not submit to a trifling tax ; and a very trifling tax indeed 
would suffice, it is true that they now pay but little. Tn 
America the taxes do not amount to a dollar a head, taking the 
pM pie one with another; here, if we exclude the army, the 
riavv, the paupers, and the prisoners, the taxes amount to fifty 
dollars a head. By putting on a second dollar, the government 
would double its means ; and, surely, an American can pay two 
dollars as well as an Englishman can pay fifty. One of your 
Royal Highness's servants, that stirring old gentleman, Mr. 
George Rose, assures us, that our population increases in war, 
and that the longer the war continues the faster we increase in 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. bl 

numbers. He says nothing of the increase of paupers; but, 
upon his principle, American population cannot be checked by 
war ; for he will hardly contend [hat this quality of fecundity 
appertains exclusively to us. Another of your servants, Lord 
Hanowby, has lately asserted, that the prosperity of this coun- 
try is now greater than it ever was. Your Royal Highness 
will not, therefore, believe, that America is to be beggared and 
ruined by a war, which, in all probability, will last only a few 
years. 

Besides, the resources of America, in her lands, are very 
great. She has, owing to her peculiar situation, a species of 
fund to draw upon which no other nation has. She is now 
about to raise an army with a bounty,»in money, of 16 dollars 
a man. The rest of his bounty is to consist of lands, which, 
of course, cost the people nothing; and, in this same way, a 
large portion of the demands of a war may and will be met. 

Much has been said about the natural ties between the two 
countries. This, considered as an impediment to war, is the 
grossest of all the delusions, and never could have been practised 
upon any nation but this. All that remains of a recollection of 
the former .connexion is calculated to produce hostility. It is 
fine enough to flourish away upon the subject of the Americans 
being of the same family with us ; but there are many, and 
many hundreds and thousands of men in America, who recollect 
that their fathers were killed by those Brunswickers and Hes- 
sians, and other German mercenaries, whom England hired to 
Send against them, because they insisted upon the principle of 
no taxation without representation, These ideas of kindred 
might do very well in a poem ; but they are despicable in po- 
litical reflections, and only discover the folly, or the wickedness, 
of those who obtrude them upon the public. 

There appears, theu, no good reason to suppose that the 
Americans will not enter upon the war, and that they will not 
persevere in it, till they obtain its object, or, at least, till they 
have fairly tried their strength. As to the consequences of such 
war to us, some of them I should regard as ultimately beneficial. 
The loss of Canada I should deem a gain, though it is worth to us 
a thousand empires in the east ; that is to say, it is not a thou- 
sandth part so mischievous to us. 

Another loss would be deeply felt, I mean the loss, for ever, 
of America as a market for our goods. Lord Sheffield has late- 
ly said, that what America does not take this year, she must 
take next year ; that, pass what acts she will, she must, in the 
end, be clothed by us. His Lordship's mind does not keep 
pace with the events of the world. The Morning Post and 
Courier are, I suspect, his chief instructors as to what has been 
passing fer the last ten years ; or be would have known that 

8 



.58 Letters of William Cobbeif, Esq. 

manufactures have arrived at great perfection in America ; that 
she is able to supply herself; and that she already exports 
♦ otfon and wool in a partly manufactured state. A war of a few 
years' continuance would sever the two countries tor ever as to 
manufactures ; and this is one reason why the government of 
America, which wishes to cut off the connexion with England, 
is disposed for war. This, however, is not, in my opinion, an 
evil. A temporary one it is : but, I can see no good that can 
arise to England from being the workshop for America, while 
we do not raise corn enough to feed ourselves. 

But, sir, there are consequences, which may be produced 
by a war with America, well calculated to make one think se- 
riously on the event. Mr. Joel B irlow, who, in the year 1792,, 
went as a deputy from a society of men in England to present 
a congratulatory address to the National Convention of Prance, 
and who was, at that time, hunted down and proscribed like 
Paine and many others, is now American ambassador at the 
court of Napoleon, where he has to negotiate with Count D nu, 
who, in that same year, 1792, was in England, and was chased 
out of England along with Mr. Chauvelin. These two men, 
who are old acquaintances, will not be long in coming to a clear 
understanding. They have both now an opportunity of re- 
paying the kindness they received from England, and there can 
be little doubt of their having the disposition to do it. 

Bv a hearty co-operation between America and France, fleets, 
and formidable fleets too, may be sent to sea, much sooner than 
our overweening confidence will, perhaps, permit us to believe ; 
and, if a force of forty ships of the line, with a suitable number 
of frigates, can be sent out from the ports of France and Hoiiand 
in the course of a year, there is no telling what may be the con- 
sequence to this kingdom. America has more than a hundred 
thousand seamen ; she has tacihties of all sorts for building 
ships; and, with the aid of France, would soon become truly 
formidable ; because we should not dare to send a merchant 
ship to any part of the world without a convoy. Americans would 
enter in the French naval service; those who are now captains 
of merchantmen would be tempted with the honour of command- 
ing ships of war ; they have, for the greater part, some particu- 
lar cause of hatred against England, and would be animated bj 
(he double motive of ambition and revenge. 

No man at all acquainted with American seamen will ever speak 
of them with contempt. They are universally allowed to be 
excellent seamen; active and daring, but not more so than they 
are skilful and cool. These are precisely the ingredients that 
the Emperor Napoleon stands in need of ; and what then, sir, 
-shall be said of those English ministers who shall force then* 
f»to his hands I 



/ 



Letters of William Cobbetf, Esq. 59 

A war with America would hasten the work of revolution in 
jjtlexico, an lit would have the further effect of making that coun- 
try, iu its state of independence, start in hostility to us ; be- 
cause, between North and South America there would inevita- 
bly be a close connexion. Indeed, sir, this appeals tome to 
be one of the great objects which America has, in now going 
Jo war. She sees that a revolution is taking place in South 
America ; she sees that, if that revolution be crushed, England, 
under the character of Pr lector of Spain, will, in fact, govern 
South America, if for no other purpose, for I hat of keeping the 
mines out of the hands of Fiance. That England should go- 
vern South America is wJial North A nerica can never permit; 
therefore, the latter must, by some means or other, assist the 
South Americans to secure their independence ; and this as- 
sistance North America cannot give with effect, unless she be 
at war wi'k England ; for, as she has seen in the case of the 
Floridas, the moment she makes a move towards the Spa- 
nish territory, England steps forward, as the protector of Fer- 
dinand, and complains of her conduct. 

If, therefore, the President of the United States has resolved 
upon doing all that he is able to promote and secure the indepen- 
dence of South America, he must also have resolved upon a 
war with England, which, in that case, is not to be avoided by 
a repeal of the Orders in Council and an abandonment of our 
practice of impressing American seamen, unless we have (he 
wisdom to declare beforehand that we shali leave the Sou; It 
Americans wholly to themselves. This is the golden opportu- 
nity for the South Americans to assert their rights and to be- 
come free. Our war against Nipoleon, on the land, disables us 
(if we were inclined to do it) from sending soldiers to support 
the old system ; and our fleets are exceedingly well employed 
in preventing Napoleon from sending soldiers for that purpose ; 
the government of Old Spain has neither troops, nor ships; there 
are no Brims vickers, or Hessians, or W.d ieckeis,or Anspachers 
to be hired by the governmeni of Oid Spain, as in the case of 
the war for independence in North America ; and thus are the 
South Americans left to setile the dispute with their own colo- 
nial governments. 

To this state of things the American President, as appears 
from his speech at the opening of the session, has not been inat- 
tentive ; and, it appears to me very clear, that « e have here the 
real foundation of the sudden change of the tone of the Ame- 
rican government towards us. It may be asked, how these 
views of the United States comport with those of the emperor 
of France, and whether he will approve of a separation of Souih 
America from, Old Spain, of which he, with but oj good reason, 
expects to be the master? In tiie first place, he has seen the 



60 Letters of William Cohbett, Esq. 

result of a war against independence in North America, and the 
love of dominion must have bereft him of reason, if he fail to profit 
from so memorable a lesson. In the next place, he must see 
that, unless New Spain become independent, it will become de- 
pendant upon England, he not having sufficient maritime force 
to keep it in colonial subjection to himself against the will of 
England. And even if he were to receive it in its colonial state, 
at a peace, he would only be entailing upon himself and his heirs 
the possession of a vulnerable point, exposed to the attack of 
England. These reasons are quite sufficient to induce him 
not to oppose any project for separating New from Old Spain, 
which, notwithstanding the independence of the countries con- 
taining the mines, would still be a great receptacle of the trea- 
sures thence derived. 

But, when to these reasons are added the many weighty rea- 
sons for seeing America engaged in a war with England, there 
can be no doubt as to what will be his decision. Such a war 
would favour his views against us in so many ways that the bare 
enumeration would be tedious. It would lock up the troops that 
we have now in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada, 
and would demand new levies of militia and fencibles in those 
provinces ; it would compel us to send a larger naval force to 
North America and the West Indies than is now there ; it 
would compel us to send convoys with every fleet of merchant 
vessels to the end of their voyage ; it would, of course, divide 
our fleets, and thereby weaken our strength in the European 
seas ; it would (as far as that is an evil) make it much more ex- 
pensive and difficult to maintain our armies in Spain and Portu- 
gal ; it would greatly augment our expenses, and, at the same 
time, our danger. 

If I were asked what ought to be done to prevent war with 
America, I should say, certainly, first repeal the Orders in 
Council ; but I am far from supposing that that measure alone 
would be sufficient. Indeed, it seems to me, that the impress- 
ment of American seamen must be abandoned; and to this I 
would add, a declaration that England would not interfere in 
the affairs of Spanish South America. There would then be 
an end of the causes of ill blood ; we should then have in Ame- 
rica, not a faction for us, but we should have the whole nation 
for our friends. We should also have a friend in South Ame- 
rica ; and to these countries we might look with confidence for 
the means of forming a combination against the overwhelming 
power of France. 

I am well aware, sir, of the great obstacles to such an ar- 
rangement; but these obstacles it is in the power of your Roy- 
al Highness to remove. This country, which has so long been 
suffering, now looks to you for some mitigation, at least, of its 



/ 

/ 
/ 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 61 

sufferings ; and I, therefore, trust, that the dawn of your 
authority will not be clouded with an additional war ; a war 
that will complete the round of English hostility to nations 
looked upon as free. It was a fatal day which saw the 
sword of England drawn against the republicans of France. 
What a lesson do the effects of that war hold out to your Royal 
Highness ! There is Ho man, be he who he may, who does 
not now dread the ultimate consequences. That that war might 
have been prevented all the world is now convinced ; and, if 
war should take place with America, the same opinion with 
respect to it will hereafter prevail, but it will prevail, perhaps, 
when it will be useless. Princes, more than other men, are" 
liable to be deceived, and it is too often a matter of great dif- 
ficulty to undeceive them; yet, of what vast importance it is, 
that they should know the truth ! And how urgent a duty it 
is to convey it to their ear if one has the power ! The lives 
of thousands, and the happiness of millions, depend upon the 
decision which your Royal Highness shall make with regard 
to this question of war or peace with America ; and, therefore, 
that you should weigh it well before you decide must be the 
anxious hope of every man who has a sincere regard for the 
fame and the safety of the country. 

I am, &c. &c. 

Wm. Cobbett. 

State Prison, Newgate, 13th February, 1812. 



LETTER VI. 

TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 

Sir, 

Since I was imprisoned in this jail for writing and publish- 
ing an article on the flogging of English local militiamen, at 
the town of Ely, and on the employing of German troops upon 
that occasion, I have presumed to do myself the honour to ad- 
dress five letters to your Royal Highness, relative to the dis- 
pute between this country and the United States of America. 
In the first three of these letters, which were published in Au- 
gust and September last, I exerted my humble endeavours to 
draw the attention of your Royal Highness to the nature of that 
dispute ; to caution you against the danger of suffering your 
ministers to urge us on to a war with America; to give you a 
true account of the feelings of the people of America upon the 
subject; and to prevail on you to cause the Orders in Council 
to be rescinded, I had, nine months before the date of these 
letters, exhorted your ministers to adopt this measure, giving 



62 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

them what I deemed sufficient reasons for believing, that they 
■would be compelled to adopt it at last ; or, that (hey would have 
to justify themselves for plunging the country into a war with 
America. 

What has now taken place in the House of Commons, in thai 
same house which has, for so long a time, supported the mi- 
nisters in their adherence to the Orders in Council, can hardly 
fail to have awakened in the mind of your Royal Highness a re- 
collection of these my efforts, which, to the misfortune of the 
country, appear to have been despised by your late minister 
and his colleagues Now, however, those great teachers, Expe- 
rience and Adversit., seem to have commanded attention ; and* 
in consequence of a motion of Mr. Brougham, at the close of an 
investigation brought forward by that gentleman, and conducted 
by him to the close, with spirit, perseverance, and ability 
which do him infinite honour, and which have received, as they 
merit, that highest of honours,the thanks and applause of all the 
sensible and public-spirited part of the nation ; inconsequence 
of this motion, made on the 16th instant, the ministry appear to 
have yielded rather than put the question to the vote, and to 
have agreed that the Orders in Council, as far as objected to by 
America, should be annulled. 

Here, then, sir, is an occasion for you to pause and to re- 
flect. And, the first thing to ask is, what new grounds present 
themselves for the annulling of these orders. Taere are none. 
They stand upon precisely the same footing that they have 
stood on ever since the month of November, 1810, when your 
ministers were, by the American government, called upon to 
annul them in imitation of the revocation of the decrees of Ber- 
lin and Milan. I backed the application of the American mi- 
nister ; I told your ministers that the sooner they repealed the 
orders ihe better ; I foresaw that war must, at last, be the con- 
sequence of their persisting in a refusal ; I urged them to do 
what they ought to do of their own accord, and not to wait till 
they should be compelled to do it. But, sir, your minister, that 
minister for whose pu lie services we the people of England, 
are now to pay 50,00"i. down, and 3.000/. per annum ; that 
minister, to whose memory we are noiv to erect a monument ; 
that minister persisted in his refusal, and tauntingly set America 
at defiance ; the best, and, indeed, the only excuse, for which, 
is, to suppose him profoundly ignorant of the temper and the. 
means of America, and of the interests of England in respect to 
her transatlantic connexions. 

America, whose government is very properly obliged to 
cons. at the wishes of Ihe people at large, was slow in her move- 
ments towards measures of hostility. Like a truly wise man, 
the President not oniy used all the means in his power to 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 63 

avoid the extremity of war ; but he also took care to prove to 
the world that he had done so. At last, however, I he Con- 
gress began to make preparations for war, beginning with lully 
explaining to the people the grounds of their so doing. From 
one step they proceeded to another, and, at every s!ep, their 
proceedings became more and more a subject of mockery with 
all those who, in England, take to themselves the exclusive ap- 
pellation of loyal men and friends of government, 

it was in this stage of the occurrences, on the 1st of February 
last, just after the arrival of the report of the committee of 
Foreign Relations to the lower house of Congress, that I 
thought it my duty to address a fourth letter to your Royal 
Highness, the chief object of which was to exhort you not to 
believe the representations of the hired press, which was hard at 
work to inculcate a belief, that the report in question, and 
all the warlike steps taken by the Congress, were mere empty 
noise ; mere boasting and bullying ; that all would end in smoke, 
and that our ministers might adhere to their Orders in Council 
with perfect safety. 1 occupied no less than four pages in my 
earnest endeavours to impress upon die mind of your Royal 
Highness a distrust of this hired, this base, this prostituted 
press, which, while it was vilifying the President and the Con- 
gress, while it was calling them tools in tiie hands of France, 
was telling the people of England, that a war with America 
would be felt by them no more " than a war with the rocks of 
Scilly." Many were the prints that laboured to these ends ; 
but the print pre-eminent in this, as in almost every other im- 
position on the public, was the Tiivifes, the prostituted columns 
of which has, within these two years, done England more mis- 
chief than those of all the other prints put together. 

What will be said by these prints, now that they see the 
Orders in Council annulled even before America has struck a 
blow, is more a matter of curiosity than of concern ; but it 
must, with your Royal Highness, be a subject of deep sorrow 
and mortification to see your ministers now lowering their tone, 
taking a cowering attitude, without any new reason being afford- 
ed in the conduct of either France or America, and before the 
ink is hardly dry of that DECLARATION, wherein you 
were advised to proclaim to the whole world, that you would 
not annul the Orders in Council, till France had, by a distinct 
and solemn act, made an unqualified revocation of her decrees. 
France, so far from doing this, has, in the most distinct manner, 
proclaimed the contrary ; and yet, our Orders are, or are to be, 
annulled ! After all the bold talk of your ministers ; after all 
the pledges of perseverance that they have put in your mouth ; 
after all their contemptuous defiance of America, here we are 
doing the tery act which we might have done nearly two years 



64 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

ago, and might thereby have prevented much of the misery, 
and all the melancholy consequences of that misery, in the cen- 
tral counties of England ! 

That we should be forced to adopt this measure, or to sus- 
tain a war with America, might have been foreseen, and ought 
to have been foreseen, by your ministers from the beginning. 
I am warranted in asserting this, because I foresaw and fore- 
told it ; but, so long ago as the month of January last, it be- 
came so evident to me, that J could not refrain from reiterating a 
positive assurance that it would and must be the case. At (he 
time to which I here refer, your minister, that minister to 
whose memory we are now to erect a monument, told the 
House of Commons, that America would be totally ruined if 
she persisted in her measures against England, and he, with a 
sort of supercilious benignity, observed, that he did not wish to 
see her " destroyed." I saw her affairs in a very different light, 
and, at that very moment, told the public, that what is now 
come to pass would come to pass. My words of the 1 8th of 
January were these : " The Americans said, that the Orders 
ought to be repealed, and we refused to repeal them; 
and they now say that we shall repeal them, or that we 
shall have them amongst our enemies. Now, then, shall we 
repeal them, or shall we not 1 Shall we, after all, give way ? 
Shall we, after all our vaunts and all our threats, yield at the 
name of war ? Shall we, who can conquer thirty millions of peo- 
ple in five days, retract our determinations at the menace of eight 
millions ? And, shall we do it, too, in consequence of a Mani- 
festo, in which, according to the interpretation of the Times 
newspaper, our court is called a corrupted courts Shall we 
yield, at last, upon terms like these ? My opinion is, that we 
shall. Aye, hard as the thing may be to get down, my opi- 
nion is, that we shall swallow it 

The wiseacres of the hired 

press say, that the Orders will be repealed, when Napoleon i 
revokes the Decrees " with the samtformality that he employ- j 
id in promulgating them?' Here they foolishly make new 
disgrace for themselves : for he will, I dare say, do no such 
thing. The Americans say, that he has revoked them to their 
satisfaction. They will not call upon him to issue any procla- 
mations or edicts. They are perfectly satisfied with what he 
has done ; and, therefore, this new pretension is a very foolish 
thing; it is keeping just the ends of the horns projecting. When 
the wise men were at it, they would have done w II to draw 
them in out of sight. For draw Hum in they must, or there is 

a war with America." 

By and by I shall offer an obser-; 

vat ion or two upon the reasons the Americans have for going 
to war, and upon the probable consequences of such war, ii it 



Letters of William Cohbett, Esq. 65 

should take place. At present I shall, as to this point, only re- 
peat my opinion, that it will take place unless the Orders in 
Council be repealed ; and also, my opinion, that these Orders 
rvill be repealed ; and that, too, without any of the saving con- 
ditions, of which the half-horned Courier is so silly as to talk. 
It will mortify some people, but it will be done. It will make 
those Jacobins and Levellers in America laugh, and Mr. Ma- 
dison more, perhaps, than any body else ; but I say it will be 
done. Bonaparte will laugh too ; but it will be done; and, 
perhaps, the least mortifying circumstance will not be, that it 
is what 1 recommended fifteen months ago. How much better 
would it have been, IF IT HAD BEEN DONE THEN. 
How much better in every respect ; and especially how much 
better for our character ! However, better late than never ; on- 
ly, when it is done, I hope it will be done with as good a grace 
as possible, and that after that, the venal prints in London will 
never more foretell the downfal of Mr. Madison, and will see 
the folly of venting their spleen, in words, against those who are 
beyond our reach ; of showing the teeth where one cannot 
bite." 

These passages, sir, were published on the l&ih of January 
last ; so that it would seem, that though shut up in one of* 
" His Majesty's Jails," I knew what was doing in the world 
better than " His Majesty's Ministers" did. " How much 
better would it have been, if it had been done then." These 
were my words five months ago, sir; and, therefore, they 
apply with the more force now. " How much better would it 
have been, if it had been done then /" How much better 
would it have been, if my opinion had been acted upon ; if my 
advice, so urgently and so respectfully tendered to your Royal 
Highness, had been followed! What national shame, what 
humiliation, what misery, what melancholy scenes, would have 
been avoided ! There can, I think, be no doubt in the mind 
of your Royal Highness, that the troubles which we have wit- 
nessed in the manufacturing counties have arisen chiefly from, 
the want of employment amongst the manufacturers, which, 
lowering the wages at the same time that corn was rising in 
price, has, in the end, produced all the scenes of misery, all 
the acts of violence, and the melancholy fate of so many of our 
countrymen. There can, I think, be no doubt, that the per- 
severance in the Orders in Council, and certain other parts of 
our maritime system connected with them, have been the chief 
cause of all these calamities ; and, when we behold the suffer- 
ings of the people, as proved before the House of Commons ; 
when we see the soldiers stationed to protect the judges in the 
courts of justice; when we see the soldiers employed (as is 
stated in the public prints) to guard the sheriff and his officers 

9 



Q$ Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

in the performance of their awful duty of executing the men aS 
Chester; when we are now told of thirty-eight men being just 
committed in a body to Lancaster jail, out of which, eight persons 
have just been taken to be hanged, amongst which eight, one is 
stated to have been a woman, " Hannah Smith, for committing a 
highway robbery, by STEALING POTATOES at Bank 
Top, in the town of Manchester :" when we behold all these 
things, sir, and scores of others that might be added to the 
list, and when we reflect, that they might all have been prevent- 
ed if my advice had been followed a year and a half ago ; 
when we thus reflect, and when we see that we have to pay 
50,000/. down, and 3,000/. to the family, and have further to 
be taxed to pay for a monument in honour of the minister who 
rejected this advice, what must b-e the feelings of the people ? 

Even in December last, when the corporation of the city of 
London, upon the motion of Mr. Alderman Wood, prayed 
your Royal Highness to take measures for " re-opening the 
usual channels of intercourse with neutral nations ;" if, even 
then, the Orders in Council had been annulled, the greatest 
part of the calamities above mentioned might have been pre- 
vented. But your ministers, with the late Mr. Perceval at 
their head, advised your Royal Highness to reject this part of 
the prayer of the city of London, and to tell them, that " no- 
thing should be wanting on your part to contribute towards the 
restoration of commercial intercourse between this country and 
ether nations to the footing on which it had been usually con~ 
ducted, even in the midst of war" This, sir, was only 
repealing what your ministers had before said ; but, sir, you 
have not been able to do this. You have not been able to make 
the emperor of France relax in the smallest degree. His con- 
tinental system remains in full vigour ; and ,so it will remain, 
even after our Orders shall have been completely done away. 
What, then, sir, are we to think of the minister who advised 
you to give such an answer to the city of London ? What are 
we to think of a monument to the memory of that minister? 

There is yet one point, and it is a point of great interest, 
upon which I am anxious to address your Royal Highness ; 
and that is, the effect which the annulling of our Orders will 
produce in America. It has been said by the hired writers ; (who 
detest the Americans only because they are free ;) it has been 
said by these prostituted personages and their like elsewhere, 
that America will now demand other points to be conceded to 
her. I had the honour to state to your Royal Highness, in my 
Fourth Letter, that America had TWO subjects of complaint 
against us, upon both of which she must be satisfied, if we 
meant to have peace with her : namely, The Orders in Coun- 
cil, and the Impressment of American seamen. The nature. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 67 

fee extent, and the grounds of the latter complaint, was, in the 
letter here referred to, fully stated ; and I then took occasion 
to endeavour to convince jour Royal Highness, that this was 
what stuck closest to the hearts of the people of America ; and 
in America, sir, the feelings of the people are consulted, as 
they ought to be, upon all occasions. 

If we look back to the report of the committee of Congress, 
of November last, we shall find, that the heaviest of its denun- 
ciations is levelled against our impressment of their seamen. 
After stating their grievances as growing out of the Orders in 
Council, they proceed to the subject of impressment, and say, 
" Your committee are not, however, of that sect whose wor- 
ship is at the shrine of a calculating avarice. And while we 
are laying before you the just complaints of our merchants 
against the plunder of their ships and cargoes, we cannot re- 
frain from presenting to the justice and humanity of our coun- 
try the unhappy case of our impressed seamen. Although the 
groans of these victims of barbarity for the loss of (what should 
be dearer to the Americans than life) THEIR LIBERTY ; 
although the cries of their wives and children in the privation 
of protectors and parents have, of late, been drowned in the 
louder clamours at the loss of property, yet is the practice of 
forcing our mariners into the British navy, in violation of the 
rights of our flag, carried on with unabated rigour and severity. 
If it be our duty to encourage the fair and legitimate com- 
merce of this country by protecting the property of the mer- 
chants, then, indeed, by as much as life and liberty are more 
estimable than ships and goods, so much more impressive is 
ihe duty to shield the persons of our seamen, whose hard and 
honest services are employed, equally with those of the mer- 
chants, in advancing, under the mantle of its laws, the interests 
of their country." These were the sentiments, expressed in 
that report, which determined on war ; and your Royal High- 
ness may be assured, that up to these sentiments they are pre- 
pared to act. It was from this conviction, that, in the Fifth 
Letter addressed to your Royal Highness, I said: " If I 
were asked what ought to be done to prevent war with Ameri- 
ca, I should say, certainly first repeal the Orders in Council ; 
but I am far from supposing that that measure alone would be 
sufficient. Indeed, it seems to me, that the impressment of 
American seamen must be abandoned ; and to this I would 
add a declaration, that England would not interfere in ihe affairs 
of Spanish South America." I now, sir, most earnestly re- 
peat this advice. I implore you to resist the advice of those 
who would fain make you believe that we ought to persist in 
these impressments. I implore your Royal Highness to reflect 
■on the manifold miseries that may arise from this cause ; and 



68 Letters oj William Cobbeii, Esq. 

to be pleased to bear in mind, that to yield hereafter, to yield 
upon force or menace, will be disgrace ; whereas, to yield now 
would indicate a sentiment of justice. How many nations have, 
from the indulgence of the pride and obstinacy of their rulers, 
been at last humbled in the dust ! But this will never, I trust, 
b,e the lot of England under the sway of your Royal Highness. 
That nothing may be wanting on my part to prevent your Roy- 
al Highness from being deceived into the adoption of injurious 
measures with regard to the question of impressment, I will, in 
my next, endeavour to lay before you a true and clear state- 
ment of the case, and will humbly offer you my opinion as to 
what ought to be done by our government with respect to it. 
And I remain in the meanwhile, &c. &c. &c 



cc. 
Wm. Cobbett. 



State Prison, Newgate, Thursday, 18th June, 1812. 



AMERICAN STATES. 

A second American war seemed to be all that was wanting 
to complete the round of adventures in this jubilee reign ; and 
this, it seems, we have now got. It was very hard to persuade 
people that America would declare war. I begged of the 
Regent not to listen to those who affected to laugh at American 
hostility. I told him, in so many words, that we should have 
war, unless we redressed the grievances that America com- 
plained of. Scarcely any body could be prevailed upon to be- 
lieve this ; but it is come true, it seems, after all. The anti- 
jacobins will not believe me ; they despise my warnings ; and 
they pay for it in the end. Not only the public, but the go- 
vernment, in England, wholly disbelieved that the Americans 
would go to war. The truth is, that there are so many news- 
papers in England whose sole purpose is to deceive the pub- 
lic, that the wonder is that any truth at all ever gains general 
belief. There has, however, been an extraordinary degree of 
obstinacy as to the real intention of America with regard to war. 
"Nothing could induce people to believe that she would go to 
war. I asserted and proved, aa I thought, that it was natural- 
ly to be expected that she would go to war, unless we did away 
the orders in council, and also the impressment of American 
seamen ; but scarcely a soul would believe. Perhaps it may 
be good for the cause of freedom that I was not believed ! But 
let us now quit the past, and look a little to the future. What 
will take place now ? The letter, or pretended letter, from 
Liverpool, under the date of the loth instant, would make this 
cheated nation bejieve, that the moment the news arrives of the 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 69 

tepealof the orders in council, the quarrel with America will 
be at an end. It will be best, however, io let the letter speak 
for itself : " I have to advise you, that a pilot boat is arrived 
here to-day from New-York, which she left en the 23d ult., 
bringing an account that the senate, after deliberating seven 
days, had come to the resolution of declaring war against Great 
Britain, 19 to 13. An express had arrived at New York to 
major Bloomfield, which he read at the head of his army, for- 
mally announcing that the United States had declared war 
against Great Biilain. I think it proper to add, however, that 
the houses in New York which despatched the pilot boat 
with this information, for the purpose of making speculations in 
produce, expressly ordered, that should the orders in council 
be revoked, their friends here were on no account to make any 
purchases for them. This is a convincing proof (hat this de- 
claration of war will be short-lived, and on the arrival of the 
Gazette, containing the revocation of the orders in council, all 
matters in dispute between the two countries will be amicably- 
settled. The Mackerel schooner had been despatched from 
New-York by Mr. Foster, direct to Falmouth, the day before the 
pilot boat sailed. When the senate came to the resolution of 
declaring war, the account of Mr. Perceval's death had not 
reached Washington, but was known at New-York." Thus 
a new falsehood is to be set on foot. We are now to believe 
that the declaration of war is to have no effect. Till now it has 
been asserted, distinctly asserted, that the senate had rejected the. 
proposition for war. This, as the reader well knows, has been sta- 
ted most distinctly, with all the circumstances attending the fact. 
It was not only asserted that the senate had rejected the pro- 
position, but the number of the majority against the motion was 
given to this deceived, this cheated, this insulted nation. In 
the Courier newspaper of the 17th inst, was published the 
following paragraph : 

** We stop the press to state, that we have just learned, that on 
a motion made in the house of representatives for declaring 
war against Great Britain, the question was carried by a large 
majority ; but, on being brought up to the senate, it was rejected 
by a majority of two." This was published on the 1 9lh of July, 
and on the 20th the above letter from Liverpool. Now, upon 
what authority was the first statement made ? Clearly upon no 
authority at all. It was a falsehood ; a falsehood intended to 
deceive the people of England ; a falsehood intended to answer 
most base, and yet most foolish purposes ; for, on the 20th, out 
comes the truth by sheer force. I have heard a gentleman say 
that he verily beiieved, that if the French were at Dover, 
half a million strong, these same newspapers would represent 
Napoleon as at the last gasp. I hardly believe that ; for, by 



70 Letters of William Cobbctt, Esq. 

the time he was safely landed, they would be considering of the 
means of going over to his side, and would, in their own minds, 
be settling as to their price. But, short of a crisis like that, 
there is nothing that will induce them to desist from perseve- 
ring in falsehood to the very moment of detection : to the 
very moment ! They know well, that a few weeks, days, or 
hours, must expose their falsehoods to the public ; but they 
know, also, that for those weeks, days, or hours, the falsehoods 
answer their purposes. And when one falsehood is worn out, 
thev have another. Thus it is that this nation is deceived ; it 
is thus that it is more deceived than any other nation upon 
earth ; and that, at last, when a calamity comes upon it, it 
seems to be thunderstruck at what all the rest of the world 
clearly foresaw. It is thus, too, more than by any other 
means, that the country has been brought into its present hum- 
ibled and distressed state. The people have always been be- 
lieving pretty nearly the contrary of the truth while the event 
was coming. The result has, in almost every case, been pre- 
cisely the opposite of what was expected ; and the world have 
thought the people of England mad for their silly expectations ; 
but if the world knew the means that are used to make the 
people of England believe falsehoods instead of truth ; if the 
world knew that the people of England, during the progress of 
any expedition, or other warlike undertaking, for instance, hear 
siothing but falsehoods respecting it, the world would not be sur- 
prised at the disappointment of the people of England at the 
result. These observations apply with peculiar force to the 
dispute with America, who has been represented to the people 
of England as being, even now, wholly incapable of going to war, 
and whose government has been represented as acting contrary 
to the sense of the people in all its acts of resistance against 
England. Now, however, we are at war, if the above news be 
true ; and even now new falsehoods are attempted to be palmed, 
upon us. But does the reader not perceive, that if America 
has declared war, she is at war 1 And that if she is at war, 
there must be a treaty before there can be a peace ? To make 
a treaty of peace will require some montns, at any rate ; 
and does the reader suppose that the Americans, after the ex- 
pense of arming has been encountered, will disarm till she has 
obtained satisfaction upon all the points at issue ? The acts of 
aggression (as she considers them) on our part are many; and 
does the reader suppose that the mere news of the repeal of 
the orders in council will satisfy her 1 Besides, if there were 
no cause of disagreement but that of the orders in council, 
does not the reader perceive that the repeal has not been full, 
and complete, and unqualified ; and that if it were so, America 
cannot be expected to disarm without some sort of compensa* 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 7\ 

iion ? What ! is our government to commit upon the Ameri- 
cans whatever acts of aggression it pleases ; and, after that, 
when America arms, and declares war, are we to suppose, that 
to effect an instant peace, we have nothing to do but to put a 
stop to our aggressions ? I do not take upon me to assert that 
they are aggressions ; but supposing them to be such, as I really 
think they are, does the reader suppose that our government 
possesses a license to commit acts of aggression, and to put for- 
ward its mere cessation of them as a ground for peace with the 
offended party ? This is not the way with our government, 
either abroad or at home. 

ft is always talking of "indemnity for the past, and security 
for the future ;" and why are we to suppose that the American 
government will not talk in the same way ? If a man offend 
our government, does it say " cease to offend us, and there is an 
end of the matter !" No: this is not the language it is now mak- 
ing use of to the people in the Luddite counties. It punishes 
them, when it can catch them : and shall it lay down as a maxim, 
that it is never to be made responsible for what it does ! The 
reader may be assured that the Americans do not consider it as 
exempted from the usual laws and principles by which nation* 
regulate their conduct towards each other: and he may be fur- 
ther assured, that the inquiries relative to the state of our ma- 
nufacturers will not, when read in America, tend to lower her 
tone. She is now armed ; she has got over her great reluctance 
to enlist soldiers and to fit out armed vessels ; and she will never 
lay down her arms, that is to say, she will never make peace with 
us, until we agree to make her ample compensation for her losses 
and injuries under the orders in council, and also agree to desist 
from impressing any persons on board her ships at sea. Are we 
prepared for this ? Are the associates of Perceval ready to give 
up these points ? Are they ready to pay for what has been 
captured under regulations which the Americans regard as a 
violation of their rights ; and are they ready to make it a crime 
in any English officer to seize seamen on board American ships 
at sea? If they are, we shall certainly soon be at peace with 
America; if they are not, my opinion is, we shall have war with 
her till these points are given up. The close of (he pretended 
letter from Liverpool is curious. It observes, that " when 
the senate came to a resolution of declaring war, the account of 
Mr. Perceval's death had not reached Washington.'' As much 
as to say, if the news of his death had reached Washington, war 
might not have been declared ! And this is the way in which the 
friends of the little dead lawyer speak of him, is it ! They leave 
us clearly to infer, that the news of his death, the bare news of 
his death, might have prevented a war with America ! And yet. 
have these same writers the impudence to call the people c»f 



»ii 



2 Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 



• 



Nottingham and other places, monsters, because they expressed 
their joy upon receiving the same news ! In conclusion. I beg 
the reader to bear in mind that 1 have been nearly two years 
endeavouring to prevent a war with America ; that very soon 
after I was sentenced to be imprisoned two years in Newgate, 
and to pay a thousand pounds to the king, for writing about the 
flogging of English local militia men at the town of Ely, and 
about the employing of German troops upon that occasion; I 
beg the reader to bear in mind, that, very soon after that impri- 
sonment commenced, I began my most earnest endeavours to 
prevent this war, the most fatal I fear of all the many wars in 
which we have been engaged, since the present king mounted 
the throne. I was enabled to tell pretty exactly what would 
come to pass, unless we redressed the grievances of America 
without delay. I had letters from America, written by persona 
of a little more understanding than appears to be possessed by 
those from whom our lawyers get their information. I did not. 
know to what extent the merchants of America might submit 
to have their property seized ; but I was well assured, that the 
American people would no longer suffer their seamen to be im- 
pressed upon the open sea. This I was positively told nearly 
two years ago ; and I am now particularly anxious to impress 
it upon the minds of the ministers ; for they may be assured, 
that the American government, if it has actually declared war, 
will never make peace till that point is settled to the satisfaction 
of the American people ; till, in short, we agree to desist wholly 
from taking any person whatever out of an American ship at 
sea. I am aware how stinging it will be to some persons in 
England to yield one jot to America. I am aware how much 
more they hate her government than they hate that of France. 
1 am aware how glad they would be to hear of the United States 
being swallowed up by an earthquake. Not so, however, the 
people of England generally, who do hot grudge any thing that 
is yielded to America so much as they do what is yielded to 
other powers. They do not, besides, see very clearly the 
advantage they are to derive from the keeping down of the 
Americans by the means of the English navy. They do not 
see the benefit that is likely to accrue to them from any thing, 
the tendency of which is to press upon a free people in another 
country. Nothing, Lam convinced, will ever make an Ameri- 
can war popular in England. 

Wai. Cobbett. 
Betley, July 23d, 1SI2. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 78 



TO THE PRINCE REGENT, 

Sir, 

If I have now to refer to the proofs of (he correctness of 
those opinions which I addressed to your Royal Highness many 
months past, upon the subject of the dispute with America, I 
beg you to be assured, that [ do it not in the way of triumph, 
but in the hope, that even yet my advice, most respectfully 
offered to your Royal Highness, may have some weight with 
you, and may, in some small degree, tend to avert that last 
of national evils, a war with America, a war against the chil- 
dren of Englishmen, a war against the seat of political and re- 
ligious freedom. 

In my former letters I took great pains to endeavour to in- 
duce your Royal Highness to distrust the statements in our 
public prints as to the power of the English party in the Ame- 
rican states. I assured you, that the venal press in England 
was engaged in promulgating a series of deceptions with regard 
to the opinions of the people of America. I took the liberty 
to point out to your Royal Highness the mischiefs which must 
result from listening to the advice of those whose language might 
correspond with that of this press ; and, in short, I showed, 
that if the endeavours of that pernicious, partial, and corrupt 
press had their intended effect, war with America must be the 
consequence. By this press (the vilest instrument of the vilest 
corruption that ever existed in the whole world) the people of 
England were induced to approve of the measures which have 
now produced a war with America ; or, at least, they wefe in- 
duced to wink at them. They were made to believe, that our 
measures of hostility against America were useful to as, and 
that the American government had not the power to resent them, 
by war. The same, I doubt not, was told to your Royal 
Highness verbally ; but how wretchedly have the nation and 
you been deceived ! 

The state of affairs between the two countries now stands 
thus : There exists a dispute on the subject of our Orders 
in Council, on that of the Impressment of American seamen, 
and on the possession of the Floridas. There are some other 
matters of inferior importance, but they would admit of easy 
arrangement. With regard to the Orders in Council, your 
Royal Highness was advised to issue, on the 21st of April 
last, a declaration, stating that you would not repeal the Or- 
ders in Council until France, officially and unconditionally, by 
some public promulgation, repealed her Berlin and Milan De« 
crees. France, bo far from doing this, has, in the most public 

10 



74 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 

and solemn manner, declared, that she will never do what your 
declaration required, though, at the same time, she has re- 
peated (and she has done no more) what she had said to the 
American government in 1810, and what was then communi- 
cated to our government by the American minister in London. 
Nevertheless, you were afterwards advised to repeal the 
Orders in Council, though the conditions of the declaration 
before issued were not at all satisfied, but were, in fact, set at 
open defiance. 

This repeal, which took place on the 23d of June last, was, 
however, too late in its adoption to prevent war, The Ameri- 
can government, who had been making their preparations for 
many months, and which preparations had been the subject of 
mockery with the venal press in England, declared war on the 
18th of June last. The intelligence of this having been re- 
ceived in England, your Royal Highness was advised to issue, 
on the 31st of July, an Order in Council for an embargo on 'all 
American vessels in our ports, and also for capturing and de- 
taining all American vessels at sea. 

This is the state of affairs between the two countries ; and the 
main question now appears to be, whether, when the American 
government hears of our repeal of the Orders in Council, they 
will revoke their declaration of war. This is a question of 
great interest at this moment ; and I shall, therefore, proceed 
to lay before your Royal Highness my sentiments with respect 
to it. 

The same sort of infatuation that has prevailed here, with 
regard to American affairs, for many months past, appears still 
to prevail. Indeed, sir, 1 can call it no other than insolence ; 
an insolent contempt of the Americans, taught by those who 
hate them, and who would if they could, kill them to the last 
man, in revenge for their having established a free government, 
where there are neither sinecures, jobs, or selling of seals. This 
insolence has induced people to talk of America as a country 
incapable of resenting any thing that we might do to her ; as 
being a wretched state, unsupported by any thing like vigour in 
government; as a sort of horde of half savages, with whom we 
might do what we pleased ; and, to the very last minute, the 
great mass of the people here, ninety-nine out of every hun- 
dred, firmly believed, that America mould never go to war with 
us. They lett provocation quite out of the question. They 
appeared to have got into their heads a conclusion, that let us 
do what we would to America, she would not go to war with us. 

This way of thinking has pervaded the whole of the wri- 
ting?, upon the subject of the dispute with America. At every 
ptage in the progress towards war, the corrupt press has assert- 
gd ? that America knew better than to go to war with lis. Whors 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 75 

sie went so far as to pass acts for raising an army and equipping 
a fleet, and that, too, with the avowed intention of making war 
against us ; still the hirelings told the people, that she dared not 
go to war, and that she only meant to bully* I could fill a large 
volume with assertions from the Times newspaper alone that we 
should not yield a tittle, and that America woidd not dare to 
go to war. But the fact is too notorious to dwell upon. There 
is no man, and especially your Royal Highness, who can have 
failed to observe the constant repetition of these assertions. 

At last, however, America has dared to go to war, even 
against that great warrior George the Third, nearly three-fifths 
of whose reign has been occupied in wars, exclusive of the 
wars in India. He has been not only the greatest warrior, but 
the greatest conqueror, of any European prince that ever lived. 
Napoleon is nothing to him as a conqueror ; and yet the Ame- 
ricans have dared to declare war against him. But, even now, 
now that she has actually declared war, and that, too, by an act of 
congress, by a law passed by real representatives of the people ; 
by men elected by the free voice of the nation ; by an unbri- 
bed, unbought, unsold, unenslaved assembly, not by a set of 
corrupt knaves whom the president can at any time twist about 
by means of the people's money ; even now, when she has de- 
clared war in this solemn manner, the hireling newspapers in 
London would fain make us believe, that the whole thing is a 
mere make-belief, that it is a mere feint, and " will end in 
smoke." At the least, they tell us, that when the news of the 
repeal of our Orders in Council reaches America, there must 
be a revocation of the declaration of war. They seem to for- 
get, that the declaration of war in America is an act of congress, 
and to do away the effect of that act, another act must pass. 
They seem to forget that it is the people who have declared 
war, and that the people must be consulted before that decla- 
ration can be annulled or revoked. But, sir, the fact is, that 
these writers talk miserable nonsense. We are at war with Ame- 
rica ; and, before we can have peace with her again, we must 
have a treaty of peace. 

But the main question for rational men to discuss is : " will 
the repeal of our Orders in Council be sufficient to induce Ame- 
rica to make peace with us, without including the redress of her 
other grievances ?" This is the question that we have to din- 
cuss ; it is a question in which hundreds of thousands are imme- 
diately interested ; and it is a question which I think may be 
answered in the negative ; that is to say, sir, I give it as my 
opinion, that the repeal of our Orders in Council will not be suf- 
ficient to restore us to a state of peace with America ; and I now 
proceed respectfully to submit to your Royal Highness the rea- 
sons upon which this opinion is founded. 
In oiy last letter I had the honour t» state to your Royal 



7 6 Letters of William Cobbeit, Esq. 

Highness, (hat there was another great point with America ; 
namely, the Impressment of American seamen, which must be 
adjusted before harmony could be restored between the two 
countries ; and T as you must have perceived, this subject of 
complaint stands at the head of Mr. Madison's statement of the 
grounds of war; it stands at the head of his manifesto against 
our government. His own words will best speak this mean- 
ing : 

" Without going beyond the renewal, in 1803, of the war in 
which Great Britain is engaged, and omitting unrepaired wrongs 
of inferior magnitude, the conduct of her government present* 
a series of acts hostile to the United States as an independent 
and neutral nalion- British cruisers have been in the continu- 
ed practice of violating the American flag on the great highway 
of nations, and of seizing and carrying off persons sailing under 
it ; not in the exercise of a belligerent right, founded on the law 
of nations against an enemy, but of a municipal prerogative over 
British subjects. British jurisdiction is thus extended to neu- 
tral vessels in a situation where no laws can operate but the law 
of nations, and the laws of the country to wliicb the vessels be- 
long; and a self-redress is assumed, which if the British subjects 
Were wrongfully detained, and alone concerned, is that substitu- 
tion of force for a resort to the responsible sovereign, which 
falls within the definition of war. Could the seizure of British 
subjects, in such cases, be regarded as within the exercise of a 
belligerent right, the acknowledged laws of war, which forbid aa 
article of captured property to be adjudged without a regular 
investigation before a competent tribunal, would imperiously 
demand the fairest trial, where the sacred rights of persons 
were at issue. In place of such trial, these rights are subject- 
ed to the will of every petty commander. The practice, hence, 
is so far from affecting British subjects alone, that, under the 
pretext of searching for these, thousands of American citizens, 
under the safeguard of public laws, and of their national flag., 
have been torn from their country, and from every thing dear 
to them — have been dragged on board ships of war of a foreign 
nation, and exposed under the severities of their discipline, to 
be exiled to the most distant and deadly climes, to risk their 
lives in the battles of their oppressors, and to be the melancholy 
instruments of taking away those of their own brethren. Against 
this crying enormity, which Great Britain would be so prompt 
to avenge if committed against herself, the United States have 
in vain exhausted remonstrances and expostulations : and that 
no proof might be wanting of their conciliatory dispositions, 
and no pretext left for a continuance of the practice, the British 
government was formally assured of the readiness of the United 
States to enter into arrangements, such as could not be rejected. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. f ? 

if the recovery of the British subjects were the real and the 
sole object. The communication passed without effect." 

The grievance here complained of is certainly very great, 
and cannot be expected to be borne by any nation capable of 
resistance. If England were at peace, and America at war, and 
the latter were toassurne the right of stopping our merchant 
vessels at sea, and taking out of them, by force, any men whom 
her officers might choose to consider as Americans, what should 
we say to the assumption ? And would not your Royal High- 
ness be ashamed to exercise the royal authority without the 
power instantly to punish such an affront to the dignity of the 
crown and the honour of the country ? But degrading as this 
impressment is to the national character of the Americans, it 
cuts them still deeper by the real sufferings that il inflicts ; by 
the ruin which it occasions to thousands of families; and -by 
the deaths which it produces in the course of every year. I 
have before stated that the number of impressed American sea- 
men is very great, or at least has so been stated in America, 
amounting to many thousands, constantly in a state of the most 
terrible bondage to them ; and, as some are daily dropping off, 
while others are impressed, the extent to which the evil has 
been fell in America must have been very great indeed, during 
so long a war. 

Our corrupt newspapers, with the Times at their head, are 
endeavouring to misrepresent the nature of the complaint of 
America, and thereby to provide the ministers beforehand with 
a justification for war rather than afford her redress. Upon 
the part of the President's manifesto above quoted, the Times 
makes these observations : 

" She first complains of our impressing British seamen when 
found on board American vessels ; but this is a right which 
we now exercise under peculiar modifications and restrictions. 
We do not attempt to search ships of war, however inferior 
their force to ours : and as to searching merchantmen, we do 
not even do this, vaguely or indiscriminately ; but upon posi~ 
five and accurate information. And practically, we appre- 
hend, that the criminal concealment on the part of America, 
is a much greater nuisance to us, than a wanton search on our 
part is to her. Let her, however, propose ' such arrange- 
ments' on this bead as are calculated to effect the recovery 
of British subjects, and she will find Great Britain far from 
averse to listen to her." 

This, sir, is a tissue of falsehoods and misrepresentations. 
The President does not complain that we impress British sea- 
men ; he complains that, under pretence of taking British sea- 
men, we take American seamen. This is what he complains 
of, which is precisely the contrary ofcwhat is hrre stated. As 



.' 



78 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

to not taking men out of American ships of war, our govern" 
ment knows well, that America has no ships of war worth speak- 
ing of, and that she has thousands of merchant ships. It is 
said here, we do not search American merchantmen " vaguely 
and indiscriminately ; but upon positive and accurate informa- 
tion." One would suppose it impossible for any man, capable 
of writing a paragraph, to sit down coolly and stale so perfect 
a falsehood as this. But herein we have an instance of the 
length to which the hirelings of the English press will go in 
supporting any thing which they are called on to support. It 
is a fact, and this writer knew it to be a fact, that any com- 
mander of any ship in our navy, when he meets an American 
merchantman at sea, does, or may, go or send on board of her, 
and he does, or may, take out of her any persons, who, in his 
opinion, are British subjects. That this is a fact no one can 
deny : where then is the " positive and accurate information ?" 
It is also a fact, that the Americans have frequently asserted, 
that our officers have thus taken out of their ships at sea many 
thousands of American citizens, under the pretence of their 
being British subjects. It is also a fact, which is proved by 
the books at our own admiralty, that the American government, 
through its consul in London, has obtained the release from our 
fleet, of a great number of American citizens thus impressed, 
seized, and carried off" upon the high seas. It is also a fact, 
proved by the same authority, that many of the Americans, 
thus taken, have lost their limbs in the compulsory service of 
England, a service which they abhorred. It is a fact that I 
take upon me to vouch for, that amongst the American citi- 
zens thus captured and carried off, and forced into our service 
of iate years, were two grand nephews of General Washing- 
Ion,* and that one of the two was released from our service by 
the Lords of the Admiralty, in consequence of an application 
from the American consul, while 1 was in prison for writing 
about the flogging of the local militia in the town of Ely, and 
about the employment of German troops upon the occasion. 

And jet, sir, in the face of all these facts, has the hired 
writer the audacity, the cool impudence, to assert, that we ne- 
ver search American vessels for seamen, a but upon po- 
sitive and accurate information." With this instance of false- 
hood — of wilful, shameless falsehood, before them, one would 
imagine, that the public would never after be in danger of being 
deceived by the same writer ; but, alas ! sir, the cunning slave, 
who sells his pen for this purpose, knows well that the public, 

* John and Charles Lewi? : J[olin wn= gisrliargri in Eebniary, 1012, after three 
applications ; was very badly u c ed during detention ; des-rted twice, and flogged 
twice. Charles was also applied for three times, ant] was discharged in Decem- 
ber, 1811. It was alleged in the first rase that he w.:s a native of Quebec, and ia 
the other that he had voluntarily Wintered. 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 79 

or, at least, that that part of the public whom he wishes to de- 
ceive, will never, till it be too late, be able to detect him ; he 
knows thai his falsehood goes where the exposure seldom 
comes, and if it come at all. he knows that its arrival will be 
too late to prevent the etf'ect to produce which is his object. 

He next calls upon America to propose her arrangement 
upon this subject; though in the very manifesto, upon which 
he is commenting, the president declares that an offer had been 
made to our government to enter into an arrangement, but that 
" the communical ion passed without effect." It is going very- 
far on the part of America to otFer to enter into any arrange- 
ment upon the subject ; for why should not she say, as we cer- 
tainly should say ; " Take care of your own seamen ; keep 
them from us in any way that you please ; but you shall, on the 
seas, take nobody out of our vessels." Nevertheless, she has 
offered to enter into arrangements, " such," she says, " as could 
not be rejected, if the " recovery of British seamen was the 
sole object ;" and yet this writer accuses her of the criminal 
concealment of our seamen ! We have rejected this otier of an 
arrangement for the prevention of British seamen from taking 
shelter in American ships ; and yet this writer accuses Ameri- 
ca of a desire to injure us by making her ships an asylum for 
British deserters ! 

Our government say, that if we do not exercise our powei v 
of searching American ships, and taking out our own seamen, 
our sea service will be ruined by the desertions to those Ame- 
rican ships. For instance, a British ship of war is lying at Ply- 
mouth, and there are three or four American vessels in the 
same port. Numbers of the seamen get on board the Ameri- 
can ships ; they get out to sea ; and, if they cannot be seized 
there, they go off safely to America, or to any other part of the 
world, and are thus lost to our navy. There is no doubt, sir, 
but this might become a very serious evil, if not counteracted. 
But are the Americans to suffer because (for whatever reason) 
our sailors desert ? And, above all, are real Anerican citizens to 
be exposed to impressment, to be sent to be shot at, to be con- 
veyed to the West or East Indies, to be made to end their days 
under the discipline of an English man of war — are real Ame- 
rican citizens to be exposed to all this because British seamen 
desert, and because that desertion (a very serious crime) may 
become extremely dangerous to us ? I am sure your Royal 
Highness is too just to answer this question in the affirmative. 

The case must be new, because the relative situation of the 
two countries is a novelty in the history of nations ; but while 
we have an undoubted right to recover our own seamen, if we 
can do it without violating the rights of other nations, we can 
have no right, in any case, to seize American citizens. Ameri- 



SO Letters of William Cobbeli, Esq. 

ea says, " I do not want your seamen — I would rather not have 
them. Keep them by what means you please. Take them 
wherever you can find them in my ships : but, before you do it, 
produce proof of their being yours, and that, too, before a 
competent tribunal." Nothing can be fairer than this ; but this 
necessarily sets aside all impressments at sea, where there can 
be no proof given, because there can be no tribunal, or umpire, 
lodecide upon the proofs, and we contend, that, without the pow- 
€i* of impressing at sea, our navy would be greatly injured by 
desertion, and our strength thereby materially weakened. 

This is the point upon which we are at issue with America— 
supposing the Orders in Council to remain repealed, and the 
dispute as to that matter to be settled — this is the point upon 
which, if not settled amicably, we shall have war with the Ame- 
rican States. It is the point upon which the people of Ame- 
rica, who are something, are more sore; and I am convinced 
that it is a point which they will not give up. They say, and 
they U idy say, that it is a mockery for them to talk of their 
freedom and their independence, if the very bodies of their 
citizens are liable to be taken upon the high seas and forced into 
the service of a foreign sovereign, there to be treated according 
to the rules and regulations of that sovereign. A people sub- 
mitting to this cannot be called free, and their country cannot 
be called independent. Therefore, when the time comes for 
entering on a treaty of peace with America, I hope your Royal 
Highness will resist all advice tending to a pertinacious adhe- 
rence to the exercise of the power of impressment ; for while 
that power is exercised we shall, in my opinion, never have 
real peace with America. 

The other point in dispute, namely, Ihe possession of the 
Floridas, or, at least, that part of them which belongs to Spain, 
is of inferior importance ; but I am of opinion, that that point 
will not be easily overcome, unless we are prepared to give it 
up. America sees the possibility of Old Spain becoming a 
mere puppet in ihe hands of England, and she sees the almost 
certainty of its becoming a dependant upon either England or 
Fiance: and she wants neither France nor England for so near 
a neighbour. She has, in the adventures of Captain Henry, 
seen the danger of having a neighbour on her northern flank; 
and the Floridas are not divided by immense deserts and lakes 
as Canada is. While the Floridas were held by the sleepy old 
government of Spain, America saw little dancer; but she will 
not, I aui convinced, suffer either England or France to be mis- 
tress of Those provinces. 

This is a point, therefore, which, in my opinion, we should be 
forward in giving up, and not get into a war with America for 
the sake of Ferdinand, as we are continuing the war with France 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 81 

for his sake. The revolutions going on in South America it is 
the interest of the United States to encourage and assist to the 
utmost of their power ; and I should advise your Royal High- 
ness to show an earnest desire to avoid interference therein ; 
for if, upon the ground of supporting the authority of Ferdinand, 
or upon any other ground, you show a disposition to take part 
against the republicans of South America, that alone will be 
sufficient greatly to retard, if not wholly defeat, all attempts at 
an accommodation with America. Nay, sir, to speak freely 
my sentiments, I do not expect peace with America while we 
have an army iii Spain, or, at least, while there is the smallest 
chance of our obtaining a settled ascendency in that kingdom ; 
and I really think that every mile of progress that we are ma- 
king there puts peace with America at a greater distance. We, 
in this country, or the greater part of us, see no danger in the 
increase of any power, except the power of Napoleon, whose 
territories half envelop our coast, and whose armies are but at the 
distance of a few hours sail. Not so the Americans. They see 
danger in the increase of our power, ours being that sort of pow- 
er by which they are most annoyed. If they had their choice be- 
tween us and France, for a neighbour in South America, they 
would not hesitate a moment in preferring France — because her 
power is not of that sort which would be formidable to America. 
What she would wish, however, is to see South America inde- 
pendent of Old Spain, and, of course, of the masters of Old 
Spain ; and she is not so blind as not to perceive, that the con- 
test in Old Spain now is, who shall have it under her control, 
England or France. 

For these reasons every victory that we gain in Spain will be 
an additional obstacle to peace with America, unless we set out 
by a frank and clear declaration, leaving South America to itself, 
and the Floridas to the United States. 

Before 1 conclude, I beg leave to notice that part of the speech, 
recently delivered by your Royal Highness's order to the two 
houses of parliament, wherein mention is made of the dispute 
with America. The part I allude to is this : " His Royal High- 
ness has commanded us to assure you, that he views with most 
sincere regret the hostile measures which have been recently 
adopted by the government of the United States of America to- 
wards this country. His Royal Highness is nevertheless willing 
to hope, that the accustomed relations of peace and amity may 
yet be restored ; but if his expectations in this respect should be 
disappointed, by the conduct of the government of the United 
States, or by their perseverance in any unwarrantable pretensions, 
he will most fully rely on the support of every class of his ma- 
jesty's subjects, in a contest in which the honour of his majesty's 
crown, and the best interests of his dominions, mtist be involved," 

11 



82 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq, 

This part of the speech has been thought, with reason, to augur 
vrar — for I am not awa: e of " any pretensions" of America that 
she will not "persevere" in. If pretensions to be put forward, 
to be now originated, had been spoken of, there might have been 
more room for doubt ; but in speaking of pretensions to be perse- 
vered in, the speech necessarily refers to pretensions already 
put forward ; and I repeat, sir, that I do not know of any pre- 
tensions that America has put forward, in which I do not believe 
she will persevere, to do which the conduct of your Royal High- 
nesses ministers is eminently calculated to give her encourage- 
ment. 

As to support from the people of England, in a war against Ame- 
rica, j' our Royal Highness will certainly have it, if the grounds 
of the war be clearly just ; but it would be very difficult for your 
ministers to make the people perceive, or believe, that the im- 
pressment of American seamen, any where, and especially in 
the very ships of America, was necessary " to the honour of his 
majesty's crown, and involved the best interests of his domi- 
nions." The people have now seen all the predictions of the 
hireling prints, with regard to America, falsified ; they have been 
told that America could not support herself for a year without 
England, and they have seen her do it for a year and a half, and 
at the end of that time declare war. They are not now to be 
persuaded that this government can do what it pleases with 
America. 

It has been stated, with an air of triumph, by the partisans of 
your ministers, that the opposition are pledged to support a war 
against America, unless she is satisfied with the repeal of the 
Orders in Council. But the people, sir, have given no such 
pledge; the manufacturers have given no such pledge ; and the 
war will not be a jot the more popular on account of its having 
the support of that set of men who are called the opposition, and 
for whom the people have no respect, any more than they have 
for their opponents. The Orders in Council were a grievance to 
America, but not a greater grievance than to see her citizens 
dragged by force info a service which they abhor, on so many 
accounts, however pleasant and honourable it may be to our own 
countrymen. This grievance was known to exist ; and, there- 
fore, if the opposition have given a pledge to support a war against 
A nerica, unless she be satisfied with the repeal of the Orders in 
Council alone, they have given a pledge to do that in which they 
will not have the support of the people. 

I am one of those, sir, who do not regard a great extension of 
trade as a benefit ; but those who do must lay their account with 
seeing much of our trade destroyed for ever by a war with Ame- 
rica. Three or four years of war would compel her to become a 
manufacturing country to such an extent as never more to stand 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 85 

in need of English goods ; so that, if your Royal Highness's mi- 
nisters do insist upon exercising the power of seizing people on 
board of American ships at sea, those persons who manufacture 
goods for America must seek another market, for that is closed 
against them for ever. 

For many years, sir, there has existed in this country, a fac- 
tion perfectly desperate in their hatred of freedom. They 
not only hate all free nations,, but they hate the very sound of 
the word freedom. 1 am well satisfied that persons of this de- 
scription would gladly hear of the murder of every soul in Ame- 
rica. There is nothing that they hate so much as a man who is 
not a slave, and who lives out of the reach of arbitrary power. 
These persons will be sorely grieved to see peace preserved be- 
tween the two countries on terms honourable to America ; but I 
am, for my part, ready to confess, that with me it will be a sub- 
ject of joy ; I am ready to declare, that I see less reason than 
ever for an Englishman's wishing to see the people of America 
humbled or borne down ; and that it will grieve me exceedingly 
to reflect that England is taxed, and that English blood is shed, 
for the purpose of enforcing the power to impress American sea- 
men; but this mortification F shall, I trust, be spared, by the 
humanity and wisdom of your Royal Highness. 



TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 

Sir, 

During the time that I was imprisoned for two years in 
Newgate, for writing about the flogging of the local militia in the 
town of Ely, and about the employment of German troops upon 
that occasion, I addressed to your Royal Highness several letters, 
the object of which was to prevent this country from being plunged 
into war with America. I took great pleasure in offering to you 
advice, which I thought would be beneficial to my country ; and, 
of course, I have experienced great sorrow at seeing that that ad- 
vice has not been followed, and that, in consequence of its rejec- 
tion, we are now actually in a state of war with our brethren 
across the Atlantic. 

Those corrupters and blinders of the people, the hired writers, 
do not attempt to make their readers believe that we are not at 
war with the republic of America. They it is who have hasten- 
ed, if not actually produced, this war ; for they it was who reviled 
the American president, and who caused it to be belived here that 
he and the congress dared not go to war. What pains, alas ! 
have I taken to convince your Royal Highness of the folly and 
falsehood of these opinions I Though my mind was bruised with 



84 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

the means of raising the thousand pounds fine to pay to the king', 
(and which you have received from me in his behalf,) I let slip 
no occasion to caution you against these representations. I told 
you (and you might as well have believed me) that the American 
people were something ; that they had a say in the measures of 
government ; that they would not suffer themselves to be plunged 
into war for the gain of a set of lazy and rapacious fellows ; but 
that, if their country's good demanded it, they would go to war ; 
and that such war would, in all probability, be very calamitous 
to England. 

While I was telling you this, your late minister, Perceval, was 
laughing at the idea of America going to war ; and his opinion was 
upheld by all the venal scribes in the kingdom ; that is to say, by 
nineteen-twentieths, perhaps, of all those who write in newspapers, 
and other political works. That we really are at war with Ameri- 
ca, however, the following document clearly proves. The Ame- 
rican congress declared war in due form ; they passed an act 
making war against your royal sire and his people ; their govern- 
ment issued letters of marque and reprisal ; but, still our hirelings 
said that there was no war. The following proclamation, however, 
issued by an American general from his head quarters in Canada, 
which province he has invaded, puts the fact of war beyond all 
doubt. 

[The proclamation of Brigadier General Hull, above alluded io^ 
was inserted in the Statesman of the lltfc instant, to which paper 
we refer our readers.] 

He, sir, who will not believe in this, would not believe though 
one were to rise from the dead. This is an animating address ; 
and it is, at least, possible, that it may prove the forerunner of the 
fall of Canada, which, when once gone, will never, I believe, return 
to the English crown. 

The fact of war being now ascertained beyond all doubt, the next 
thing for us to think of is, the means by which we are to obtain 
peace with this new and most formidable enemy. The hired 
writers, unable any longer to keep from their readers the fact that 
war has taken place, are now affecting to treat the matter lightly : 
to make the people of England believe, that the Americans will be 
driven out of Canada ; that the people of America hate the war — 
and that, at any rate, the congress will be obliged to put an end to 
the war, when the intelligence of the repeal of our Orders in Coun- 
cil shall arrive at the seat of the American government. 

These being the assertions now most in vogue, and most gene- 
rally listened to, I will give your Royal Highness my reason for 
disbelieving them. 

First, as to the probability of the Americans being baffled in 
their designs upon Canada : if the contest was a contest of man to 
mm } upon ground wholly neutral, I should say, that the advantage 






Letters of IVilliam Cobbett, Esq. 85 

snight be on our side ; but I am not sure that it would ; for the 
Americans have given repeated proofs of their courage. They 
are, indeed, known to be as brave as any people in the world. 
They are, too, volunteers, real volunteers, in the service they are 
now upon. The American army does not consist of a set of poor 
creatures, whom misery and vice have made soldiers ; it does not 
consist of the offcasts and outcasts of the country. It consists 
of a band of freemen, who understand things, and who are ready 
to fight for what they understand ; and not of a set of half crip- 
ples, of creatures that require to be trussed up in order to pre- 
vent them from falling to pieces. It is the youth ; the strong, the 
active, the hardy, the sound youth of America, whom our army 
in Canada have to face ; and though I do not say that the latter 
will be unable to resist them, yet I must saj T , that I fear they will 
not, when I consider that the Americans can with ease pour in 
a force of forty or fifty thousand men, and when I hear it stated, 
that we have not above fourteen or fifteen thousand men in Cana- 
da, exclusive of the militia, upon whom I do not know what de- 
gree of reliance is to be placed. After all, however, the question 
of success in the invasion of Canada will, as in the cases of France 
and Holland, depend wholly upon the people of Canada. If 
they have reason to fight for their present government ; if they 
be convinced that a change of government would make their lot 
worse, they will, of course, rise and fight against the invaders, and 
then our commander may safely set General Hull at defiance ; but 
if the people of Canada should have been inveigled to believe 
that a change of government would be for their benefit, I must con- 
fess that I should greatly doubt our power of resistance. It 
will be quite useless for us to reproach the people of Canada with, 
their want of zeal in defence of their country. We have re- 
proached the Dutch and the Italians, and the Hanoverians, for the 
like; but, sir, it answers no purpose. Such reproaches do not 
tend to drive out the invaders ; nor do they tend to deter other 
nations from following the example of the invaded party. What 
a whole nation wills, must, sooner or later, take place. 

As to the second assertion, that the people of America hate the 
war, I must say that I have seen no proof of such hatred. The 
Americans, being a reflecting people, and a people resolutely bent 
upon preserving their freedom, have a general hatred to war, ass 
being, generally speaking, hostile to that freedom. But in the 
choice of evils, if war should appear the least evil, they will not 
fail to take it — and, indeed, they have taken it—for, in America, it 
is really the people who declare war — the congress is the real re- 
presentative of the people — there are no sham elections — no buy- 
ing and selling of votes and of false oaths — .-but the members are 
the unbought, uncorrupted, uuenslaved agents of the people, and 
if they cease to speak the sentiments of the people who elect them. 



i»6 Letters of William Cobbett, Ea^ 

they are put out of the congress al (he end of a very few months* 
It is, therefore, not only false, but stupid, to affect to believe the 
war is unpopular, and the government is odious in the eyes of the 
people. Aii its members are chosen by them — and if it ceased 
to please them, it would soon cease to exist. Nothing, therefore, 
can be so absurd as to suppose that a measure so important as 
that of war has been adopted against the will of the people. 

This opinion has been attempted to be sustained upon the evi- 
dence of a riot at Baltimore, the object of which was the silencing 
of a newspaper, and the end of which was bloodshed on both 
sides. But, from this fact, the exactly contrary conclusion ought 
to be drawn. The newspaper in question was, as it appears, hos- 
tile to the war— and, therefore, a riot, in order to silence such pa- 
per, cannoi be considered as a proof of unpopularity attached to 
the war. Though this species of attack upon the liberty of the 
press is far less injurious to that liberty of the press than the 
base attacks dictated by despotism, and masked under the visor 
of forms dearest to freedom— si ill it is an attack — it is answering 
statement and argument by violence — by something other than 
statement and argument. Therefore, I disapprove of the attack 
■ — but I cannot consider it as a mark of the unpopularity of the 
war, of the precise contrary Sf which it is, indeed, a very bad 
proof. 

Much having, in our hired newspapers, been said of this riot ; it 
fcaving been represented as a proof of bad government in Ame- 
rica, and (which is more to my present purpose) as a sign of ap- 
proaching anarchy, tending to the overthrow of that government 
which has declared war against us, I must trespass a little further 
«pon this head, to beg your Royal Highness to believe nothing 
that the hired men say upon the subject. When the war with 
France began, in 1794; that war, which appears not to promise 
any end ; when that war began, many riots took place in England, 
against those who were opposed to the war; many houses were de- 
stroyed—many printing offices demolished — many booksellers put 
to flight — many men were totally ruined — and that, too, by mobs 
marching and killing under banners on which were inscribed 
*' Church and King" Now, as there was a general anarchy to 
follow these things in England, I beg your Royal Highness not 
to be persuaded to believe that anarchy will follow the demolish- 
ing of a printing office in the United States of America, where 
there are more newspapers than there are in all Europe, this coun- 
try included. Once more, however, I express my disapprobation, 
and even my abhorrence, of that demolition : which was the less 
excusable, as the assailants had freedom, real freedom of the press, 
to answer any thing which the bribed printer might publish, and 
even to publish pn account of his bribery. Such, however, ap- 
pears to have been the popular feeling in favour of the war, thai 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. H7 

no consideration was of sufficient weight to restrain the resent- 
ment of the people against a man who was daily declaiming against 
that measure. 

H" we consider, as I think we must, that the people of America 
were in favour of the war at the time it was declared, the next 
thing to be considered is, what effect the intelligence of ihe 
repeal of the Orders in Council will have in America. The ques- 
tion is, in short, whether that intelligence will make such a change 
in the sentiments of the people of America, as to produce peace. 
I think it will not. There are some persons in England who seem 
to believe, that the receipt of that intelligence will at once put an 
end to the war; for they do not appear to consider any treaty ne- 
cessary to the restoration of peace with America. 

Not only must there be a negociation,and a treaty of convention^ 
before there can be peace, or even a suspension of arms ; but I aua 
of opinion, that no such treaty or convention can be made without 
more being done by us than merely the repealing of our Orders 
in Council, which removes but a part, and not, by any means, the 
greatest part of the grievances of which the Americans complain* 
So long ago as the month of February last, as will be seen by my mot- 
to, I expressed to your Royal Highness my opinion, that the mere 
repealofthe Orders in Council would not satisfy the people of Ame- 
rica. It was, therefore, with no small degree of surprise, that I 
saw (from the reports in the newspapers)Jhat Mr. Brougham had 
pledged himself to support the ministers'Mn a war with America, if 
she should not be satisfied with their measure of repeal. I was 
surprised at this, because Mr. Brougham must have seen that she 
complained of the impressment of her seamen, and of divers 
other things which she deemed to be injuries. Besides, did Mr. 
Brougham imagine that our two years nearly of refusal to repeal 
were to go off without any thing being done by us in the way of 
compensation. The history of the transaction is this : The American. 
President announces, in 1810, that unless we repeal our Orders by 
a certain day, in the same way that France had done, a certain 
Jaw shall go into force against us. We do not comply ; we con- 
tinue in what he calls a violation of his country's rights for a year 
and a half after the time appointed for repealing ; at the end of 
that time an inquiry takes place in parliament, and two volumes 
are published containing evidence of the ruinous effects, to us, of the 
measure which America has adopted. Thereupon, we repeal. 
But, sir, Mr. Brougham can hardly want to be told, that America 
has made no promise to be. satisfied with any repeal which should 
take place after her act should go into effect. Indeed, she has 
never made any such promise ; nor wa3 it to be supposed that, 
when she saw her measure of exclusion was ruining us, she would 
be content with our merely doing that which was calculated to save 
OOTselves. This, in fact; is ear language to her ; we refused 4© re- 



88 Letters of William Cobhelt, Esq. 

peal our Orders till we found that the not repealing them was inju-* 
rious to ourselves, and, therefore, we now repeal them, and, in con- 
sequence, call upon you to act as if we had never refused. 

This, sir, is what no nation can be supposed to listen to. We 
do what America deems an injury ; we do what she says is suffi- 
cient to justify her in declaring war against us. And, after a 
while, we desist : but notoriously because proof has been produced 
that perseverance is injurious to ourselves. In the meanwhile she 
declares war, to compel us to do that which we have done before 
we hear of her declaration. And, under these circumstances, can 
we expect her to disarm until she has obtained something like in- 
demnification for the injuries which she alleges she has sustained ? 
If there were in existence no ground of dispute other than that of the 
Orders in Council, it appears to me that America could (especially 
with our parliamentary evidence before her) never think of peace 
without a compensation for the vessels seized illegally, as she says, 
under the Orders in Council. Otherwise, she tells the world that 
she may be always injured with impunity ; because the utmost that 
any nation has to apprehend from her hostility is to be compelled 
to cease to violate her rights. Upon this principle she may be 
exposed to a like attack the next day after she has made peace. 
Either, therefore, she complains without cause, or the mere re- 
peal of our Orders in Council ought not to satisfy her. 

Besides, sir, it appears to me, that even supposing that there 
were no other ground for the war, on her part, than the existence 
of our Ordtfis in Council, she is bound, in fairness towards the em- 
peror Napoleon, to obtain some kind of compensation for what she 
has suffered from the execution of our Orders in Council after the 
time that he repealed his Decrees, If she make peace with us, 
and place us upon the same footing with France, without obtain- 
ing such compensation, he will assuredly allege partiality against 
her, since she will have suffered us to continue to do with impuni- 
ty, for a year and a half, that which she has made him cease to 
do. It was, therefore, I repeat it, matter of great surprise with 
me, that Mr. Brougham should have given the pledge above men- 
tioned; though I hope your Royal Highness will be advised bet- 
ter than to pursue measures that shall put them to the test. 

Compensation for the property seized under the Orders in Coun- 
cil will, I think, be denied — and if the Orders be recognised as a 
violation of the rights of America, I do not see upon what ground 
such compensation could be objected to ; but, sir, as far as relates 
to ourselves, I trust, that the means of making such compensation 
would not be demanded of the people, but would be taken from 
those who have received the amount of the property seized. 
"With this, however, America has nothing to do — she can only 
demand compensation; but she may extend that demand to the 
amount of her fitting out ships of war, and in sending forth an 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 89 

array. " Indemnity for the past and security for the future" is, 
sir, a phrase not unknown to those who adorn, and have adorned 
your royal sire's court ; and I do not know of any maxim in pub- 
lic law, or in diplomacy, that forbids a republic any more than a 
monarchy to make such a demand. If we do allow that America 
has just cause of complaint, we do wrong, we act a base and cow- 
ardly part, if we desist not from doing that which she complains 

of. 

Upon what ground it is, then, that Mr. Brougham expects an 
immediate cessation of hostilities on the part of America, I am at 
a loss to discover. I am at a loss to discover upon what ground 
it is that he has made his pledge, or at least the pledge which has 
been attributed to him. Either he must look upon the Orders in 
Council as the sole ground of the American declaration of war, or 
he must suppose there to be other grounds. If he looks upon them 
as the sole ground, he must, I think, suppose that America will 
lay down her arms without obtaining indemnity for such heavy 
losses as those Orders have occasioned her; and if he looks upon 
the declaration as having been partly produced by other subjects of 
complaint, he must reasonably suppose, that an adjustment, as to 
those grounds of complaint, must precede a cessation of hostilities. 

Whatever pledges may have been given by any persons, it is 
for your Royal Highness to lend an ear to the voice of reason ; 
and 1 am greatly deceived, if that voice will not recommend to 
you an expression, as speedily as possible, of your readiness to 
cause the officers of the fleet to cease to impress any person out 
of American ships. This, as I have before had the honour to 
assure your Royal Highness, is the complaint which has, at last, 
in reality, produced the war between us and our American bre- 
thren. There have been many subjects of difference, many grounds 
of quarrel, but this is what finds its way to the heart of the Ame- 
rican people. They would, I verily believe, have endured all 
but this : this, however, I knew they would not endure, and I told 
your ministers and the public so long ago. If I am asked whether 
I think that the ceasing to impress people on board of Ameri- 
can ships would cause many of our sailors to desert, I answer, 
that I do not know — but that I do not see why it should ; I do 
not see why Englishmen should like the American service better 
than our own. And, really, I must say, sir, that I think, that to 
entertain any such apprehension squares not well with the tenor 
of our national songs, about the valour and patriotism of our " tars." 
I think it exceedingly humiliating to us to suffer it to be said, or 
to act as if we said, that we must retain the power of impressment, 
or personal seizure, on board American ships out at sea, for fear 
the giving up of that power should cause our fleet to be deserted. 
Sir, I am one of those who love to believe that English seamen 
do not want force to induce them to fight for their country. It 

12 



.90 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 

is, in my eyes, a most mortifying thing to proclaim to the worWy 
that we are likely to have a war with America, and that we appear 
to prefer war with America to the giving up of the means of de- 
tecting and seizing English sailors, deserters from the king's ser- 
vice. This so badly comports with all our assertions respecting 
the freedom we enjoy, and also respecting our devotion to our 
king and our glorious constitution: for it appears to me, that if the 
world believed in the necessity of this power of impressment, it 
must think either that our boastings of our blessed state are untrue, 
or that our sailors are not the most wise or the most loyal set of 
men. I am for wiping off the stigma ; and without crying or faint- 
ing away, as Sir Vicary Gibbs is reported to have done at Horse- 
monger lane, I am for showing the Yankees, and the whole world,, 
that we want no terror to keep our seamen to their duty ; that we 
are not afraid of their skulking from our fleet to take refuge in 
American ships; that we entertain not the disgraceful apprehen- 
sion, that those who have once had the honour to sail under the 
Royal flag of the house of Hanover, will ever prefer that of ths 
American, or any other republic. 

Honour, sir, as well as policy, seem to me to dictate the giving 
up of this power; and, as the giving of it up might, and, as I think, 
would, cause the restoration of peace between England and Ame- 
rica, I will not be persuaded that such a measure does not accord 
with the wishes of your Royal Highness. 

As to " the exhausting the resources of America," which now 
begins to be talked of by that most corrupt of newspapers, the 
Times, I do most earnestly beseech your Royal Highness to bear 
in mind how long the late Pitt promised this deluded nation that 
he would exhaust the resources of republican France! Sir, Mr. 
Madison, though a very plain-dressed, sleek headed man; though 
he wears neither tails, nor bags, nor big wigs, nor robes; though 
he dresses in a pepper-and-salt coat, and a nice dimity waistcoat, 
knows a great deal more of our real situation than I believe many 
of your ministers know of it ; and I should not wonder if he knew 
almost as much of it as your Royal Highness's self does. He is 
a man, sir, who is not to be led by our hireling prints y he sees 
our gold at above five pounds an ounce ; he has seen acts passed, 
which, in effect, force the circulation of our bank notes; and, see- 
ing this, he does not want any body to tell him what is coming ; 
geeing this, he will laugh at the idea of our exhausting the resour- 
ces of America, the capital of whose whole debt does not amount 
to a tenth part of one half year's interest upon our debt. This 
ground of hope is, sir, more visionary than any other. Indeed, 
ttiey are all equally visionary. There is no hope of any thing 
but loss and injury to us by a war with America. 

I have now done all that I am able to prevent this calamity. If 
the war proceeds, I shall say as little about it as circumstances 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 91 

t 

will permit. I have lost no occasion of endeavouring to put aside 
this evil ; and when the result of the contest shall be lamented— 
when those who now rejoice at the idea of doing mischief to free- 
men shall be weeping over their folly, I trust that your Royal 
Highness will have the justice to remember that this war had a 
decided opponent in your faithful servant, 

Wm. Cobbett. 



TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 

Sir, 

When I closed my last letter to your Royal Highness up* 
on this subject, it was my intention to forbear any further remon- 
strance with you thereon, and to leave time to be the teacher. 
But the intelligence, arrived from America since the date of that 
letter, has made me depart from that intention, and has induced 
me to make one more effort to convince you, that without further 
measures in the way of conciliation, peace with America is not 
likely to be restored. 

The very day on which my last letter was printing, (Friday 
last,) was marked by the promulgation of tidings from America, 
that the congress had revoked the declaration of war, and that 
the American general in Canada had entered into an armistice for 
thirty days ; and that both these had taken place in consequence 
of the revocation of our Orders in Council. A few hours were suf- 
ficient to dissipate these falsehoods ; fabricated, no doubt, for the 
purpose of deceiving the people of this " most thinking" country. 
The deception would last, in all human probability, for only a few 
days ; but, at the end of those days, a new falsehood would be 
invented, and the old one lost in that. This falsehood, however, 
does not appear to have lived even forty-eight hours ; for the 
very next day after its promulgation brought forth the contradic- 
tion; brought forth the complete proof of a fabrication. Surely, 
sir, the people of America must despise us i They must despise, 
or, at least, pity, a nation who are made the sport of such vile lite- 
rary impostors ; base hirelings, who prostitute the press to all the 
purposes hostile to truth and freedom. 

The authentic intelligence received from America appears to 
be, in substance, this : That the American government has receiv- 
ed intelligence of the repeal of our Orders in Council, but that it 
is by no means satisfied therewith, and means to demand a redress 
of all its alleged grievances before it lays down its arms. In con- 
firmation of this, the following paragraph has been quoted from a 
paper deemed the demi-official paper of the American govern 
raent ; 



92 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

«' The Orders in Council of the British government are now 710 
longer a question with the United States. The question of peace 
now requires only a proper and a vigorous use of the ample means 
which the government is possessed of, to render it speedy, deci- 
sive, and glorious. Peace, when it comes, must bring with it more 
than the confession of British outrage by the retraction of its 
avowed tyranny. It is not a mere cessation to do wrong that 
can now produce a peace ; wrongs done must be redressed ; and 
a guarantee must be given, in the face of the world, for the resto- 
ration of our enslaved citizens, and the respect due to our flag, 
which, like the soil we inherit, must in future secure all that sails 
under it. The rights of neutrals must be recognised ; and the 
British, like the first tyrants of the Swiss, must no longer expect 
a free people to bow down and worship the symbols of British 
usurpation." 

Did I not tell you so, sir, in my very last letter ? Did I not say, 
that America would now demand "indemnity for the past, and 
security for the future . ? " I wished to guard your Royal Highness 
against deception, and I, for that purpose, entered into an argu- 
ment to show that we ought not to expect America to make peace 
with us upon our having barely ceased to commit what she as- 
serted to be a violation of her rights. I told your Royal Highness, 
that she, for more than one reason, must demand something more 
than a mere cessation to do what she declared to be a wrong. 
In short, if I had been informed, when I wrote my last letter, of 
what 1 now know, I could not have written otherwise than I then 
did. 

I, therefore, have, I think, some claim fo attention from your 
Royal Highness, especially as I have all along told you, that the 
repeal of our Orders would not, alone, be sufficient. When the 
repeal took place, upon the death of Mr. Perceval, and when Mr. 
Ponsonby and Mr. Brougham were reported to be making pledges 
to support a war against America, if that repeal did not satisfy 
her — at that time — at that important moment, when conciliation 
might have been rendered complete ; even then, without a moment's 
delay, I told jour Royal Highness, that the repeal of the Orders 
would not, of itself, be enough, and, as will be seen by the passage 
taken for my motto, I most earnestly besought you to put a stop, 
of your own accord, to the impressment of persons on board of 
American ships. If this had been done, sir ; if this measure, so 
strongly recommended by me, had been adopted then, we should 
now have seen our ports crowded with American ships to take 
away our manufactures, instead of hearing of hundreds of Ameri- 
can privateers cruising against our commerce. 

The Courier aud Times, newspapers, two of the most corrupt 
in England, make certain remarks upon the paragraph which I 
have quoted from the American demi-ofiu ial print; and as these 
remarks embrace assertions and notions that are false,, it is neces^ 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 93 

sary, or, at least, it may be useful to put the matters of which they 
treat in a fair light. 

The Courier has this paragraph : — " Here, then, is an open 
avowal, that nothing will satisfy the American government but (he 
abandonment of the right of search, and the acknowledgment of 
the principle, that free ships make free goods. Feri h the idea 
of peace, if it is only to be made on such terms. Yet this the 
American government calls an anxious desire to accommodate all 
differences upon the most reasonable conditions ! ! !" 

The Times says : — " In this philippic, redress is not only claim- 
ed for the supposed wrongs inflicted by this country, but it is de- 
clared that the 'American flag must in future secure all that sails 
tinder it.' This is adopting, in its fullest extent, the language of 
Buonaparte, that ' free ships make free goods.' Jf lhat principle 
be maintained by the American government, and supported by 
the American legislature, we see not the slightest prospect of a 
speedy termination of hostilities." 

Thus, then, these good hirelings are for war, rather than give 
up what they call the " right of search." They are hardly so 
stupid as not to know that the Americans do not contend for our 
abandonment of the right of search, in the usual sense of those 
words; they must know that, as far as to search ships at sea (or 
rather to visit them) has been sanctioned by the usage of nations, 
the Americans are ready to submit to it ; but, sir, this right of 
search is very different indeed from that of which these good hired 
writers are speaking. 

There is a right of search, or of visit, acknowledged by all the 
nations of Europe. When a nation is at war, she claims the right 
of visiting all neutral merchant ships at sea, in order to see that 
they do not visit her enemy by carrying warlike stores or troops 
for him; and if she find them thus taking part with her enemy ; 
if she find them thus transgressing the general usage of nations, she 
seizes them, as, indeed, she has just cause for doing, seeing lhat 
they are, in fact, engaged in the war against her. And the right 
of visiting them, to see whether they be thus transgressing, has 
been, by us, called the right of search. We have contended for, 
and have, for some time past, been able to maintain, an extension 
of this right to the goods of an enemy found in a neutral ship; 
though it is to be observed, that our ally, Russia, and our ally, 
Sweden, as well as Denmark and Holland, in all times, have con- 
tended against this right. But what have these to do with the 
searching of which Americans complain? They complain, not 
that we seize contraband of war on board their vessels; not that 
we confiscate ships or cargoes where there are enemy's troops or 
enemy's goods; but that we stop their vessels upon the high seas, 
and that there we take out of them whatever persons we 
FkEASE. This is what they complain of; and the fact 13 perfect- 



94 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

ly notorious, that we have, in this way, taken many thousands of 
persons out ot American ships, carrying on their trade quietly 
from one part of the world to another. It is notorious, that many 
of the persons thus seized were citizens and native Americans ; 
that they have been taken on board of our ships of war ; that they 
bave been kept there for years; that they have been taken to all 
parts of the world ; that many of them have been wounded, many 
have lost their limbs, and many killed, in a service which they ab- 
horred, being compelled to fight against those with whom they 
2iad no quarrel. 

There is no man of any consideration, who will attempt to say 
that this is right. It must of necessity, have created a deep-rooted 
ill will against us in America, wnere the seafaring people are not 
a class of individuals who have neither house nor home, and whose 
state is desperate. A vessel, in America, is often manned by peo- 
ple ail living in the same village; and the impressment, the ban- 
ishment, the destruction of one, must be felt by the whole, and by 
the whole of the neighbourhood also. Hence the heart burnings 
in America against England. The confiscation of ships and car- 
goes, under the Orders in Council, together with the dreadful dis- 
tress to the captains and»crews, produced great effect against us; 
but, great as it was, it fell short of the effect produced by the 
impressment of American seamen. 

It has been said that, if we give up the exercise of this power 
of impressment, our sailors will desert to the American ships. 
But suppose the fact to be so: what is that to America? It is not 
foer fault. She does not force them out of our service. She does 
not compel them to desert. If they really do like her service 
better than ours, she cannot help that. We may as well complain 
of her for ha\ ing such a country as our artisans and manufacturers 
prefer to their own, and, upon that ground, go and search her 
country for our deserted artisans and manufacturers, who emigrate 
to her shores in defiance of our laws. Really, sir, I can see no 
just cause of complaint against her because our men desert to her 
ships. It is for us to keep our men, if we wish them not to go 
into her service ; and not to complain of her for receiving them. 

It is a practice wholly unknown in the world before. We bave 
never, that I have heard of, attempted to exercise such a power 
against any nation but America. It is true, that all our officers 
who may visit her ships may not conduct themselves in a manner 
such as she has complained of; but it is not less true, that they 
are left entirely to their own discretion. They are, it is true, not 
authorized to take Americans out of American ships ; but, then, 
it is left to them, and must be wholly left to them, to decide who 
are, and who are not, Americans. This being the case, it is clear 
that every American ship's crew, who meet an English ship of 
war at sea, are at the were?/ of the commander of that ship of war J 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 95 

No more need be said ; for no man likes to be at the mercy of 
another. Tne English captain has, in this case, the. power of sei- 
zure, of imprisonment, of banishment, and, indeed, what power has 
he not over the American crew ? They may produce proof of be- 
ing natives of America, and then he is not authorized to seize 
them. Aye! but he, alas! is the sole and absolute judge of that 
proof, which he may think bad, and then it may as well not be 
produced. 

This is the view to take of the matter, sir. The corrupt press 
of London may, and will, bewilder the minds of the people, by 
talking about the right of search and the like ; but the plain fact is 
this: that in consequence of this authority given to our ships of 
war, to take persons out of American ships at sea, the crew of 
every American merchant ship that went to sea, or even from 
one port to another in America, were at the absolute mercy 
of the commander of the first English ship of war that hap- 
pened to meet them. Suppose the case, sir, of an Ameri- 
can captain sailing out of the Delaware for the East Indies 
with bis complement of men, being twenty, ail his neighbours, 
met by an English sloop of war ; suppose him to have six of his 
men taken, in spite of all his assurances of their being native 
Americans; suppose him to pursue his voyage with only four- 
teen hands ; suppose the six seized men be taken off to the West 
Indies ; suppose two or three die of the yellow fever ; another to 
be killed ; another lose an arm, and the sixth released by the inter- 
vention of the American consul at London. Suppose this case, sir, 
and you will suppose wJiat may have happened. It was possible for 
such cases to happen, and that was enough ; but it was a thing 
which admitted of being rendered impossible. It is sufficient to 
say, that in consequence of this power, no American could, in a 
merchant ship, sail the sea in safety. He never was, for one sin- 
gle hour, secure against captivity and banishment. To a people 
so situated, war must be a relief. The American seamen will 
prefer war, because, if captured in war, the laws of war protect him 
and feed him as a jirisoncr — whereas he was before liable, not on- 
ly to be seized and carried from his calling and country, but, at 
the same time, compelled to act as a seaman on board of our ships ; 
compelled to labour and to risk his life in our service, where it 
might be his lot to assist in serving others of his own countrymen as 
he himself had been served. 

Sir, when you take a dispassionate view of this matter, I am 
quite sure, that the justice of your mind will decide you in favour 
of an abandonment, a frank abandonment, of the exercise of this 
power, which is, I am satisfied, without a precedent in the usage 
of nations, and which, under the present circumstances, can do 
aothing towards the safety of the country. 

If this point were once settled, it appears to me that ranch difi?.- 



96 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

culty would not remain. But, as I had the honour to state to 
your Royal Highness, it is not to be supposed, that war is to cease 
the moment we cease to do rvrong to America. I have not taken 
upon me to say, whether our Orders in Council were a wrong or 
not; but, by the repeal, we seem to have acknowledged that they 
were. If, then, they were a wrong, the cessation of them cannot 
be considered as sufficient to induce America to put up the sword 
at once, and without further ceremony. When I published what 
was called a libel, in the year 1812, that is to say, when I publish- 
ed an expression of my feelings at what had then been described 
as having taken place at the town of Ely, (where the bank has 
since broken,) with respect to the local militia and the German 
legion ; when I made that publication, I ceased — I made only one 
of that sort ; yet, sir, was I, at the distance of a year after the 
publication, sentenced to be imprisoned for two years, and to pay 
a thousand pounds fine to your royal sire, and which thousand 
pounds I have paid to you in his behalf. So you see, sir, that 
after one has done a thing, or has been doing a thing, it is not al- 
ways sufficient to cease to do it ; the ceasing to do that which is 
deemed wrong is not always regarded as sufficient to appease, or 
disarm the offended party. The last part of my punishment, the 
payment of the fine to you, in behalf of your royal sire, was inflict- 
ed at more than three years' distance from the time of my writing 
about the local militia and the German legion. There may, per- 
haps, in the law of nations, be an exception from the general prin- 
ciples, in cases where a kingly government commits an offence, or 
alleged offence, against a republic ; but, in ray small reading, I 
have, I must confess, never met with any such exception. 

Therefore, I, for my part, was not at all surprised to see the 
American demi-official print announce, that compensation for the 
past, and security for thefidure, would be required. " It is not," 
says the writer, " a mere cessation to do wrong that can now 
produce a peace ; wrong done must be redressed, and a guarantee 
must be given in the face of the world." Yes, sir, just as in my 
case, who, after imprisonment and fine, was compelled, before I 
was released, to enter into bonds, to give a guarantee, as the re- 
publican writer calls it. Indeed, sir, the history of the world is 
full of cases in support of this doctrine of the Americans. When 
your royal brother invaded Holland, it was not sufficient that he 
ceased to penetrate into the country ; for when he got back to the 
HelJ.er, though he had then entirely ceased to be an invader, and 
appears to have very properly confined his wishes to the safe 
bringing-off of his army, the republican generals Brune (the " prin- 
ter's boy of Limosin") and Daendals, insisted upon the surrender, 
to France and Holland, of eight thousand of their seamen, who 
were then prisoners of war in England ; this they insisted upon 
" as the price of permission to the British troops, with whom the 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 9< 

duke of York had invaded Holland, to re-embark on board their 
transports without molestation" 

This was a compensation for injury, not done, but attempted. 
If the royal commander had said, " I have stopped ; I have 
ceased ; I am going away ; what more do you want ?" — If he had 
thus addressed the republican generals, they would have thought 
him cracked in the brain. His Royal Highness knew a great 
deal better. He took the effectual way of giving his opponents 
satisfaction, and thus he was enabled to bring off his army without 
molestation. 

Here, then, sir, are two instances of the soundness of the Ame- 
rican doctrine ; that a mere cessation of an offensive act is not, as 
a matter of course, deemed a satisfaction to the party offended. 
Nay, in my case, that was single ; it was committed in a moment ; 
it at once ceased; there was no remonstrance; no expostulation; 
the single act was seized hold of, and my printer and publisher, 
and one of the newsmen, though they did not attempt to defend 
their conduct, but confessed their crime, declared on oath that 
they were wholly unconscious that tbey were publishing a libel, and 
humbly sued for mercy ; though they did all this, yet they were 
all imprisoned. 

Upon what principle, then, I ask, can these corrupt writers 
imagine, that America is to be satisfied with the mere repeal 
of our Orders in Council ; that is to say, with the mere ces- 
sation of the acts offensive to her ? Upon what ground is it that 
the country, in which the proceedings against me took place, can 
expect this at her hands? I do not say that we were doing her 
wrong; I do not take upon me to decide that question. If we 
were not doing her wrong, however, why did we repeal ? If we 
were not doing her wrong, why did we yield at her menaces? If 
we were not doing her wrong, we should not have given way ; 
and if we were doing her wrong, we should have gone further ; 
for, upon the principles on which I was punished, and on which 
the sansculotte generals insisted upon your royal brother's giving 
up 8000 prisoners of war then in England ; upon those princi- 
ples, a mere cessation to do what gives offence is not considered as 
a sufficient atonement to the offended party. 

The President of the United States has seen himself ridiculed, 
and most grossly abused in our venal newspapers, who, amongst 
other qualities not more to be admired, have ascribed to him that 
of cowardice. Such language does not tend to harmony ; and 
though (thank God !) Mr. Madison cannot, by his obstinacy, or to 
indulge any old grudge, plunge his country info a war; yet he cer- 
tainly has the power to render the way to peace more difficult. I 
fnust, however, do him the justice to say, that I do not believe him 
capable of imitating, for one single moraent, those detestable mis- 
creant?, whom history has but too frequently exhibited in the act 

13 



98 Letters of William Cobbeit, Esq. 

of rendering millions miserable for (he purpose of gratifying some 
stupid, some idiot-like, some hog-like passion. But, without being, 
under any such influence, and without supposing any very strong 
prejudice against England in the minds of the people of America, 
there are, I fear, reasons enough to induce Mr. Madison to be in 
no haste to listen to terms of peace. 

America has long felt the power of England ; she has long been 
compelled to endure that which she detested ; she is covered 
with scars of our inflicting ; and she will not forget all this now 
that she has arms in her hands. 1 have before pointed out to your 
Royal Highness of what importance it is to her that we should 
have nothing to do in the affairs of Spain. The war in Spain is, 
in fact, more fearful to America when it is most promising in ap- 
pearance to us. She will never rest contented while there is a 
chance of our ha ping any influence in Spanish South America. 
Of Napoleon she is not afraid in that quarter. He has no fleet 
to endanger her commerce ; and, besides, her present exertions 
against us may, perhaps, secure her his assent to her wishes on 
that flank of her territories. 

As to our internal situation, she is well aware of it. The army 
in Canada is not better known to her than the army in the " dis- 
turbed counties.' 7 Mr. Madiaon is very well acquainted with the 
causes of our disturbances ; he has read before now all the evi- 
dence taken at the bar of parliament ; he has seen it proved that 
the people of England are suffering greatly from the non-importa- 
tion of their goods into America; he is well aware of the wants 
of our army in Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean ; and he 
knows that a war with his conn try must soon plunge us into the 
greatest distress. 

It is with a knowledge of all these that Mr. Madison enters on 
the war; and under such circumstances, it appears to me impos- 
sible that he should listen to any terms of peace not including 
ample indemnity for the past. The American prints seem to insist 
upon a guarantee for the release of the American seamen whom 
we have impressed. This, I should hope, there would be no ob* 
jection to ; and, indeed, I hope that your Royal Highness's minis- 
ters will now, at the eleventh hour, do every thing in their power 
to procure us the restoration of honourable peace ; 1 hope that 
England is not doomed to wage war against every man in the world 
who is in the enjoyment of real liberty. 1 know, sir, that there 
are, in England, men Who abhor the American government and 
people, and who would, if they had the power, exterminate them 
both, merely because the one guarantees, and the other enjoys 
freedom. Such men will never be happy while they see a freeman 
in the world : but their malice will not be gratified ; they will, 
though it blast their eye sight, still see the Americans free. Such 
men always speak of America with disdain ; they affect to con- 
sider her as nothing 5 they seem to think that no ceremony is ne* 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 9S 

pessary with her ; that even when she has declared war, and has 
actually begun war, she is bound to leave off merely upon our 
ceasing to do her wrong, if wrong it be. Such men would, of 
course, think it a mortification io senl over to h<>r pacific overtures, 
which one of them already calls suing for peace. Far from your 
Royal Highness be counsels like these! This was the language 
with regard to the republicans of France ; but the haughty Pitt 
was glad, at last, to be permitted to send overtures of peace to 
those republicans. I hope, therefore, that we shall, in this case, 
be wise in the outset, which is far better than wisdom at the 
close. 

The whole case is now before you, sir ; war or peace is in your 
power. That you may choose the latter is the earnest wish of 
your Royal Highness's faithful servant, 
• Wm. Codbett. 



AMERICAN WAR. 



This war, as appears by advices from America, has been fur- 
ther marked by our success by land, and our failure by sea. I 
will not call it disgrace, or defeat ; but an American sloop of war 
has now defeated an English sloop of war for the second time. 
So that, owing to some cause or other, the American navy, upon 
equal terms, really seems to have gained the superiority. In the 
meanwhile, however, it is stated, that through the means of the 
mediation of Russia f an opening for a negotiation for peace is 
likely to take place. But from the language oi our vile newspaper 
editors, who appear to hate the Americans for no other cause 
than that they are not slaves, little hope seems to exist of a happy 
result. The article to which I aiiude, was in the following 
words : 

" Captain Bedford, as we stated yesterday, has brought the of- 
ficial notification of an offer on the part of Russia to mediate be- 
tween this country and America. We hope it will be refused; in- 
deed, we are sure it will. We have the highest respect for the 
Russian government, the warmest admiration of its prowess, but 
we have a love for our naval pre-eminence that cannot bear to 
have it even touched by a foreign hand. Russia, too, can hardly 
be supposed to be very adverse to the principles of the armed 
neutrality, and that idea alone would be sufficient to make us de- 
cline the offer. But without discussing that point, we must make 
our stand upon this — never to commit our naval rights to the 
mediation of any power. This is the flag we must'nail to the 
national mast, and go down rather than strike it. Before the war 
commenced concessions might have been proper; we always 



300 Leiiers of William Cobbett, Esq* 

thought it unwise. But the hour of concession and compromise 
is passed: America has rushed unnecessarily and unnaturally 
into war, and she must be made to feel the effects of her folly and 
injustice. Peace must be the consequence of punishment, and re- 
traction of her insolent demands must precede negotiation. The 
thunder of our cannon must first strike tenor into the American 
shores, and Great Britain must be seen and felt, in all the majesty 
of her might, from Boston to Savannah, from the lakes of Canada 
to the mouths of the Mississippi. And before this article goes 
forth to the world, her cannon have been heard, and her power felt. 
The clamorous demagogues of America, the turbulent democrats, 
the noisy advocates for war with us, the pretended patriots of 
America, and the real partisans of France, assume now another 
tone. Their papers no longer speak the language of boast and 
menace. Fear pervades their towns on the seacoast — Alarm 
prevails in all quarters. They are more intent upon moving their 
property than in making head against the danger; and though 
they boasted that they would support government with all their 
means and resources, with their treasures and their blood, the 
government cannot, in the first year of the war, raise a loan of 
four millions sterling! These are the immediate consequences of a 
war entered into to gratify the passions of hatred and envy of En- 
gland, and to propitiate France." 

And this is the language of peace, is it? It would seem, that 
writers like this feared nothing so much as an end to that war v 
which has already brought more disgrace upon the British navy 
than all the wars in which we were ever before engaged. It 
would really seem that these men were paid to endeavour to cause 
an American navy to be created. What other object they can 
have in view, in thus goading the Americans on to hostility and 
hatred, I cannot conceive ; I am sure that the Times newspaper, 
by its senseless abuse of Mr. Madison and the congress, and its 
insolent and contemptuous language towards the American people, 
did much in producing this fatal war. Paine has said that it is the 
last feather that breaks the horse's back ; and would it be any 
wonder, if this bass print, by that insolence, those taunting 
menaces, in which it dealt a few months before the war was de- 
clared, was the last feather upon the occasion ? It spoke of the 
Americans and their navy in a strain of contempt not to be endured. 
It told them that their boasted navy should be towed into Halifax 
in a monih from the date of their declaration of war. It said that 
it hated other enemies of England ; but that Mr. Madison and his 
nation were unworthy of any thing but contempt. It was impos- 
sible forarsy nation to put up with this. Libels the most atrocious 
were published against Mr. Madison and all his brother officers 
in the government. The naval officers of America were spoken 
of as if they were dogs. In that country the people have some- 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 101 

ahing to say as to public atfairs ; and is it any wonder that such 
publications should produce an effect amongst them, who read 
every thing, and who well understand what they read? The Pre- 
sident, we find, has instantly, and with great avidity, accepted 
the mediation of Russia. He is a very plain man. Wears, or 
used to wear, a grey coat, and his no powdered hair very smooth. 
He had no big wig, nor any gowns, or any other fine thing upon him. 
Bui he seems to know very well what he is about. Indeed, all 
he has to know, is, what the people wish, and that he knows by 
their votes. He knows thar thej hate war, as the great and 
fruitful parent of taxation and arbitrary power ; and to please them, 
he must avail himself of every thing that offers, even a chance of 
putting an end to the war on just and honourable terms. 

But, as you see, our hirelings exclaim against the acceptance of 
any mediation ; even the mediation of Russia, who has committed 
her fleets to our hands. For once let us hope that these men do 
not speak the language of the government. If we refuse the me- 
diation of our own ally in the war: if we refuse the mediation of 
that power, who, we say, is about to deliver Europe, and us, from 
the fears of Buonaparte, what will that power — what will the world 
say of our cause? We are not, it seems, "to commit our naval 
rights to the mediation of any power." But I his is not proposed. 
The Americans do not dispute any thing heretofore acknowledged 
by them, or contended for by us, as a right. The thing we con- 
tend for is, the practice of impressing persons on board neutral 
ships on the high seas. This the Americans deny to be a right. 
They say that it never was before practised, or contended for, or 
claimed, by any belligerent nation ; they say, that by no writer 
on public law; by no principle ever laid down by such writer; 
by no practice; by no recognition of any power; by no 
assertion of ours, is this act justified. In short, they say that 
jt has neither law, precedent, nor reason for its basis. If they as- 
sert, in this respect, what is not true, why not prove it? Why not 
cite us the book, the treaty, the public document, the principle, 
the precedent, upon which we ground this practice? No one at- 
tempts to do this ; and until it be done, what impudence is it to 
say that we possess such a right ! 

Agreeably to all the principles of jurisprudence, when a man 
claims a right to do that which is, on the face of the thing, a trespass 
npon another man, he must first prove his right. There may be 
in John a right (o pass across the field of James ; but having now, 
for the first time, begun to exercise this right, it is incumbent upon 
him to prove it in the way of defence against an action of trespass ; 
and, if he cannot prove it; if he can show neither written deeds, 
nor bring evidence of precedent or custom, he suffers as a tres- 
passer. Apply this to the case before us, and will any one say, 
that, in order to justify a war for such a practice, we ought not to 



102 Letters of William Cobbettj Esq. 

produce something in proof of our right? I am for giving up no 
naval right of England ; and if any one will show me any treaty, 
any declaration of any power, any recognition, any maxim of 
any writer upon the public law, or any custom or precedent 
of any power in the whole world, to justify our impressment of 
persons on board of neutral ships on the high seas, I will say, that 
our last shot ought to be fired, rather than cease our practice of 
impressment. Can I say more? Can I go further? VVill justice 
or reason allow me to go further than this? The Americans will 
say, that I go much too far ; but I am quite Englishman enough 
to go this length. Further, howeyer, I will not go, call me what 
the hirelings will. 

Is it not a little too much in this writer to talk about concessions 9 
as demanded by America? She asks (I repeat it for about the 
hundredth time) for no concessions. She says we are trespassing 
wpon her, and we, without any attempt to prove that we are not 
trespassing, accuse her of demanding concessions, because she 
asks us to cease what she deems a trespass. I really, upon no 
point, ever observed these prints more base and impudent than 
they are upon this. It is so plain a case. America complains 
of a most injurious trespass ; we call it the exercise of a right ; she 
replies, prove y our right; and we rejoin by accusing her of de- 
manding concessions. However, she is now, it seems, to be pun- 
ished. That word will go backwards down the throats of those 
who have made use of it. " Punishment" is to precede peace with 
her. Poor, foolish wretch, who has wrilten or dictated this para- 
graph ! She is to be punished, and she is to retract, before we ne- 
gotiate for peace with her ! 1 beg the reader to bear this threat in, 
his mind. Whether he does or not, it will not be soon forgotten 
in America, where, we may be well assured, that the bombarding 
of a few towns wii! have no other effect than that of rendering 
the contest more bitter, and of completing the commercial separa- 
tion of the two countries. Perhaps, among the things most wished 
for by the bitterest enemies of England in America, is the burning 
of a seaport or two. The loss would be trifling in compari- 
son with the advantage to those who wish to cut the two countries 
asunder for ever. "Fear!" "Alarm /'' What alarm are they 
in? Those who know them, know how small a sacrifice the knock- 
ing down a town would be. The country is a country of plenty. 
There is more food than the people want. It is not, as in Russia, 
where famine follows war. To be sure, the inhabitants of the 
towns which are in danger must experience alarm : but what has 
this to do with the whole country ; and what gain will it be to us? 
•we shall have expended some scores of thousands of pounds in the 
undertaking, and we shall have enemies for ever of many who were 
not our enemies before. 









Letters of William Cohbett, Esq. 103 

In the mean while, whatever this writer may say about the 
loan in America, ships of war will be built; a navy will grow up; 
seamen will be formed in great numbers ; and let peace take place 
whenever it may, we shall have created a formidable rival on the 
ocean. Nor are we to suppose, if the war continues, that a closer 
connexion will not take place between America and France. 
Hitherto the war on our part has not had that effect. The Ame- 
rican government, as if to give the Ire to our insolent writers, has 
formed no connexion at all with France ; but, is it likely, that if 
the war continue, and the desire of revenge increase, some con- 
nexion will not be formed with France ? With whom is America 
to ally herself but with our enemy, who has ships in abundance, 
which has not, and only wants, just those very sailors of which she 
has too many? This would give her at once a navy without a 
lean ; or, which would be better for her, the use of a navy during 
war, without the encumbrance of it during peace. Would these 
spiteful and silly writers like to see Decatur, and Hull, and Bain- 
bridge, on board French ships of the line ? Would tbey like to 
see a fleet of nine or ten sail manned with the same sort of stuff 
that fired on the Java from the Constitution ? My opinion is, that 
it the war continue another year, they will see this : and yet 
they have the audacity, or the stupidity, to say, in print, that 
they hope the mediation of Russia will be rejected by our minis- 
ters.' It has always been my fear, and I long before the war ex- 
pressed it, that it would produce a connexion of this kind with 
France : and if such connexion has not already taken place, it has, 
perhaps, been owing solely to the fear of giving a handle to the 
English party in the states. 

If, however, we carry on a war of bombardment, that party 
will, in a short time, have no weight at all ; and the thirst for re- 
venge will produce that, which, under the influence of less hostile 
passions, might still have remained an object of jealousy. To see 
a fleet under the allied banners of France and America, would be 
to me a most fearful object. I am convinced it would present 
greater dangers to us than we have ever yet had to contemplate ; 
and, therefore, I read with indignation and abhorrence all these 
endeavours of English writers to exasperate the people of Ameri- 
ca. I have never believed that the crews of the ships by which 
our frigates have been beaten were British sailors ; I have always 
believed them to have been native Americans, and I still believe 
it. But if, as our hired writers have asserted, they were our own 
countrymen, what is to hinder the ships of France to be manned 
in the same way ? The British sailors, who are now, if there be 
any, fighting against their own country in American ships, will, of 
course, be as ready to follow their commanders to French ships ; 
and, if that were to be the case, this war, for the practice of im- 
pressment, wonld have answered a most- serions end indeed. 



S 



J 04 Letters of William Cohhelt, Esq. 

By a stroke of address not without a precedent in the history 
of our cabinet, we have got into a war with America upon the 
worst possible ground for us. We talk about the maintenance of 
our maritime rights ; and this does very well with the people at 
large. " What !" say they, " America wants to rob us of our 
maritime rights!" But what is this right? Suppose it, for argu- 
ment's sake, to be a right, what is it ? It is the right of impressing 
people in American ships on the high seas. But, still to narrow 
it; it is the maritime right of impressing ; and impressing whom? 
Why, British seamen. One would think that this should have 
been the last ground on which to make or meet a war. It is utter- 
ly impossible to devest one's self of (he idea which this conveys ; 
and equally impossible not to perceive the effect which must be 
produced by it in the sailor's mind. For either our navy 
does contain considerable numbers of seamen who wish to seek 
and find shelter under the American flag, or it does not. If it 
does not, why go to war with her for this right of impressing them I 
If it does, how must these same seamen feel as to the cause in 
which they are engaged ? I fancy this is a dilemma that would 
hamper almost an)- of the partisans of the American war. I have 
always been disposed to believe, notwithstanding the assertions to 
the contrary, that our seamen have not gone over to the Ameri- 
cans in any considerable number ; but if, unhappily, I am deceiv- 
ed, I am quite sure that this war will have a strong tendency to 
aggravate the evil. 



TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 

Sir, 

During the two years that I was imprisoned in Newgate.; 
for writing and publishing an article upon the flogging of certain 
English militiamen, at Ely, in England, under the superintendence 
of German troops, and for which writing and publishing I, besides, 
paid your Royal Highness a fine of a thousand pounds, in behalf 
of your royal sire ; during that time I endeavoured, in various 
ways, to expiate my offence, but in no way more strenuously than 
in trying to dissuade you from yielding to advice, which, as I 
thought, would, if followed, produce a war with the American 
states. That consequence, which I so much dreaded, and which 
I laboured with so much earnestness to prevent, has unhappily 
taken place ; and, though it may be of no service, though my 
efforts may still be unavailing — nay, though I may receive abuse 
instead of thanks for my pains, I cannot refrain — the love I bear 
my own country, and the regard I shall ever bear a great part of 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 105 

the people of America, will not suffer me to refrain from making 
one more trial to convince your Royal Highness, that the path of 
peace is st ill fairly open with that country, and that pacific mea- 
sures are the only measures which ought even now to be pursued. 

In one of my letters to your Royal Highness I endeavoured to 
convince you, that it was to the base, the prostituted pivss of 
England, that we were likely to owe this war; I pointed out to 
your Royal Highness the means resorted to by that press in order 
to deceive the people of England; and I expressed my appre- 
hensions, that these means would succeed. That press, that vile 
and infamous press, which is the great enemy of the liberties of 
Europe and America, as well as of England, was incessant in its 
efforts to cause it to be believed, that, in no case, would the Ame- 
rican government dare to go to war. It asserted that America would 
be totally ruined by six months of war; that the people would not 
pay the taxes necessary to carry it on; that the President, for only, 
barely talking of war, would be put out of his chair; that the 
" American navy" as it was called by way of ridicule, would 
be " swept from the ocean in a month :" and that, in short, a war 
witi. America wis a thing for Englishmen to laugh at; a subject of 
jest ."nd mockery. 

This was the style and tone of the hireling press in London, 
and, with very lew exceptions, the country prints followed the 
stupid and insolent example. Events have already shown how 
faise all these assertions were; and now, as is its usual practice, 
this same corrupt press is pouting forth new falsehoods, with a 
view of urging on the war, and of reconciling the people to its 
calamities. 

It was my endeavour to show your Royal Highness the real 
state of the case. I said, that the people of America, though 
wisely averse to war, as the great source of taxation and loss 
of liberty, would, nevertheless, submit to its inconveniences rather 
than submit to the terms which it was recommended, in our hire- 
ling prints, to impose upon them. I begged jour Royal Highness 
to disbelieve those who said that the American government dared 
not go to war, and that Mr. Madison would not be re-elected. I 
besought you to reflect upon the consequences of rushing into a 
war with that country, amongst which consequences 1 included the 
forming of a great naval force on the other side of the Atlantic, 
and the hot le'ss fearful measure of manning a French feet with 
American sailors. Our hired presses affect to turn into jest a 
proposition said to have been made by the President for the build- 
ing of twenty frigates'. If he has made that proposition, however, 
and if the war continue only one year, your Royal Highness will 
find hat the twenty frigates are launched upon the ocean. The 
ignorant and saucy writers in London, who live up to their lips in 
luxury, and whose gains are not at all dependant upon the pre** 

14 



106 Letters of William Cobbctt, Esq. 

perity of the country; these men care not how the people suffer. 
Their object is to prolong; the war, which suits the views of those 
with whom they are connected. They assert whatever presents 
itself as likely to promote this object, and, therefore, they take no 
pains to ascertain whether the building of twenty frigates is, or is 
not, a matter of easy execuiion in America. If they did, they 
would find, that the Americans have the timber, the iron, the pitch, 
the hemp, all of the produce of their own country ; all in abun- 
dance ; all, of course, cheap ; and as to dock-yards, and other pla- 
ces to build ships, inquiry would teach these ignorant and inso- 
lent men, that, in many cases, the timber grows upon I he very 
spot where the ship is to be built, and that to cut it down and 
convert it into a ship is doing a great benefit to the owner of the 
land. 

And, then, as to the pecuniary means, to hear the language of 
•our hirelings, one would imagine that the people of America were, 
all beggars ; that the country contained scarcely a man of pro- 
perty; that there were no such things as money, house-goods, 
cattle, manufactures. They must, indeed, confess that the coun- 
try grows corn; but somehow or other, they would have us be- 
lieve, that there are, in America, no means, no resources. They 
cannot disguise from us the fact, lhat there are fine cities and 
towns; that there is a commercial marine not far behind our own 
in point of magnitude ; that the exports from the country amount 
annually to more than half as much as our exports, and that they 
consist of articles of first necessity; that the country contains all 
the articles of useful manufactory, and that manufactures are ma- 
king great progress ; nay, that ihey have arrived at great perfec- 
tion ; that the country is stocked with sheep, that great source of 
a nation's wealth, and that to so high a degree have these animals 
succeeded, that many single proprietors have already flocks of 
more than a thousand head. These facts the hired press cannot 
disguise from us; or, at least, from those amongst us, who are not 
wilfully blind. Upon what ground, then, sir, would they have us 
believe, that America is destitute of resources ? The things which 
I have here spoken of, are thing3 of which national riches consist; 
they form the means of making national exertions ; of sending forth 
fleets and armies. And we ought to bear in mind, that America, 
that this new enemy of ours, has a population of more than eight 
millions of souls, none of whom are paupers, none of whom are 
clad in rags ; none of whom are without meat upon their table 
daily; not one sou! of whom would condescend to pull off bis hat 
to any human being. And this is the nation, a nation, too, de- 
scended from ourselves, that the hirelings of the London press 
represent as destitute of resources ! 

Perhaps, sir, the resources of America are estimated according 
to the salaries which their public functionaries receive — and, mea- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 1QJ 

sured by this standard, our new enemy must, indeed, appear 
wholly unable to contend against us for a single day ; for the pre- 
sident, the vice president, the secretaries of state, the treasury, 
war, navy, and all their clerks ; that is to say, the whole of the 
officers of the executive government, do not receive more than 
about half Ike amount of Lord Ar den's sinecure, as stated in the 
report to the house of commons in 1 8CK5. Nay, the apothecary to 
our army does, according to the same report, receive, in clear 
profits, annually, as much as twice the amount of the salary of the 
President of the United Stales. Our chief justice, in salary and 
emoluments, as stated in the reports laid before parliament, re- 
ceives annually a great deal more than Mr. Madison, Mr. Monroe s 
Mr. Gallatin, and the secretaries of the war and the navy in Ame- 
rica, all put together. I shall, perhaps, be told that our public 
functionaries ough' to receive more than those of America. That. 
is a point which I shall leave for others to dispute. I content 
myself with stating the facts; but if I am told, that we ought not 
to measure the salaries of our functionaries by the American stand- 
ard, I must beg leave, in my turn, to protest against measuring the 
expenses of war in America by the standard of war expenses in 
England. I must insist, too, that the resources of a country are 
not to be measured by the standard of the salaries of its public 
functionaries. I should take quite a different standard for the 
measuring of the resources of America. We know that upon a 
population of ten millions, in Great Britain, a revenue of about 
eighty millions of pounds is now annually raised — and that, in 
these ten millions of people, we include, at least, two millitms of 
paupers. Now, then, if they raise but a tenth part as much upon 
the eight millions of Americans, who have no paupers amongst 
thee, their eight millions will be four times as much as was ever 
yet raised in the country in any one year ; and it is, I think, not 
too much to suppose, that an American will bear a tenth partus 
much taxes as an Englishman, in the prosecution of a war declared 
by the vote of representatives freely chosen by the people at large. 
Eight millions of pounds sterling, raised for three or four succes- 
sive years, would build a navy, that I should, and that I do, con- 
template with great uneasiness; for, as I once before had the ho- 
nour to state to your Royal Highness, the Americans are as good 
sailors as any that the world ever saw. It is notorious that the 
American merchant ships sail with fewer hands, in proportion to 
their size, than the merchant ships of any other nation; the Ame- 
ricans are active in their persons; they are enterprising; they 
are brave ; and, which is of vast consequence, they are, from 
education and almost from constitution, sober, a virtue not at all 
less valuable in an army or a fleet than it is in domestic life. 

This, sir, is a view of the means and resources of America, 
very different, perhaps, from the views which some persons might 



i08 Letteis of William Cobbett, Esq. 

be disposed to present to your Royal Highness ; and if this, my 
view ot the matter, be correct, it surely becomes us <o be very 
cautious how we force these resources into action, am; set * ; em 
in array against us, backed, as thev will be, with the implacably 
hatred" of the American people. If, indeed, the honour of Eng- 
land required the setting of these resources at defiance ; if Eng- 
land must either confess her disgrace ; u:Hst basely abandon her 
known rights ; must knuckle down to America, or brave the con- 
sequences of what I have been speaking of; I should then say, to 
the words of the old Norman proverb, (adopted by the French in 
answer to the duke of Brunswick's proclamation,) " let honour be 
maintained, happen what will" 

But, sir, the question : Does the honour of England require the 
making of this perilous experiment? In mv opinion it does not; 
and I now, with the most anxious hope, that, at last, they may be 
attended with some effect, proceed respectfully to submit to your 
Royal Highness the reasons upon which this opinion is founded. 

The dispute, with regard to the Oiders in Council, I look upon 
as being at an end ; for, though all is not quite clear in that re- 
gpect, an arrangement seems to be matter of little difficulty. But, 
as I am sure your Royal Highness will do me the honour to recol- 
lect, I took the liberty to warn the public, that the very week that 
the Orders in Council were done away, that that measure alone 
would do nothing towards preventing war with America. I then 
said, and in the most distinct terms, and without any hesitation, that 
America would never be content without a complete abandon- 
ment, on our part, of the practice of seising persons on board her 
ships upon the high seas. I formed this opinion upon the general 
tone of the American prints ; upon the declaration of the congress ; 
and especially upon information contained in letters received from 
friends in America, in whose hearts, strange as it may appear to 
some, my imprisonment in Newgate seems to have revived former 
feelings towards me. These letters, written by persons (be it ob- 
served) strongly attached to England, for no others did I ever 
number amongst my friends ; these letters assured me, that the 
people of America, not the government, not ".a faction" as our 
hirelings have called them ; that the people of America, from one 
end of the country to the other, cried for war in preference to lon- 
ger submission to the stopping of their vessels on the high seas, 
and taking persons out of them, at the discretion of our officers. 
Upon this information, coming, in some cases, three hundred miles 
from the Atlantic coasts, I could safely rely ; and, therefore, I 
did not hesitate to pronounce, that the repeal of the Orders in 
Council alone could not preserve peace; nor was I alittle surprised 
to hear Mr. Brougham declare, that if that measure did not satisfy 
America, he, for one, would support a war against her. 

The question, then, is now reduced to this : Does the honour 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 109 

of England demand (hat she insist upon continuing the practice of 
which America complains, and against which she is now making 
war? To answer this question, we must ascertain whether the 
practice of which America complains be sanctioned by the usao-es 
of the nation ; whether the giving of it up would be to yield any 
known right of England ; because, in the case of the affirmative, 
to yield would be to make a sacrifice of our honour, rather than 
which, I agree that we ought to continue the war to the last extre- 
mity, it being much less disgraceful to submit to actual force, than 
to submit to menaces. 

My opinion is, however, decidedly in the negative ; and I will 
not disguise from your Royal Highness, that I never felt surprise 
more complete,, (to give my feelings no stronger appellation,) than 
that which I experienced at reading the following passage in 
the letter of Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Russell, of the % 2yth August 
last: 

" I cannot, however, refrain, on one single point, from expressing 
my surprise ; namely, that, as a condition, preliminary even to a 
suspension of hostilities, the government of the United States 
should have thought fit to demand, that the British government 
should desist from its ancient and accustomed practice of impress- 
ing British seamen from the merchant ships of a fireign state, 
simply on the assurance that a law shall hereafter be passed to 
prohibit the employment of British seamen in the public or com- 
mercial service of that state. The British government now, as 
heretofore, is ready to receive from the government of the United 
States, and amicably to discuss, any proposition which professes 
to have in view either to check abuse in exercise of the practi ■ e of 
impressment, or to accomplish, by means less liable to vexation, 
the object for which impressment has hitherto been found neces- 
sary ; but they cannot consent to suspend the exercise of a right 
upon which the naval strength of the empire mainly depends, un- 
til they are fully convinced that means can be devised, and will be 
adopted, by which the object to be obtained by the exercise of 
that right can be effectually secured." 

Being no secretary of slate for foreign affairs, I shall, I trust, 
be excused, if I am found to understand less of the " ancient and 
accustomed practice of Great Britain as to this matter: but, sir, 
I have never before heard, except from the London newspapers, 
that Great Britian did ever, until now, attempt to take persons of 
any description out of neutral vessels sailing upon the high seas ; 
and very certain I am that such a practice is not warranted, nay, 
that it never was thought of, by any of those authors who have 
written upon public law. I do not recollect a single instance in 
which we have exercised what is here called a right ; and if, in 
the abandonment of the practice, we give up no known right of 
England, such abandonment can be no dishonour; unless, which 



110 Letters of William Cobbeil, Esq. 

would be a monslrous proposition, it be regarded as dishonourable 
to cease to do any thing, because the doing of it has been the sub- 
ject of complaint and the object of resistance. 

The men who conduct the London newspapers, and whose lu- 
cubrations are a sore affliction to their native country, have long 
been charging the Americans with a wish to make England give 
up her " right of search/' Whether this falsehood has arisen from 
sheer ignorance, or from that impunity in deception, or rather en- 
couragement to deceive, which such writers have so experienced 
in England, I will not take upon me to determine, but I know well 
that it is a most audacious falsehood ; I know that America has 
never expressed even a wish to make us give up " the right of 
search;" and if her government were to attempt to accomplish 
such an end by war, 1 am quite sure that it would soon lose the 
support of the people. But " the right of search" is not, and 
never h;ts been, for a moment, by any writer on public law, con- 
sidered as a right to search for persons, except indeed, military 
persons, and those, too, openly employed in the enemy's service. 
" The right of search" is a right possessed by a belligerent power 
to search for and to seize as good prize any articles contraband of 
war, such as guns, powder, and the like, which may be on board 
of a neutral ship going to an enemy's port ; because, by carrying 
the said articles, the neutral does in fact aid the enemy in carry- 
ing on the war. This right has been further extended to any 
goods belonging to an enemy, found on board a neutral vessel ; 
because, by becoming the carrier of his goods, the neutral does, 
in fact, screen his goods, as far as possible, from capture, and does 
thereby also aid the enemy. This is what is called " the right 
of search ;" a riiht, however, which, as far as relates to goods, has 
been often denied by neutral powers, and which we actually gave 
up to the threats of Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, towards the 
end of the It t American mar. 

But of this right, of no pirt of this right, do the Americans 
now complain. They yield to the exercise of this right in all its 
rigour. But they deny that we have any right at all — they 
deny that we have a pretence to any right — to stop their vessels 
on I be high seas, and to take out of them any persons whatever, 
unless, indeed, military persons in the service of our enemy ; 
and I repeat, sir, that I know of no usage of nations ; that I know 
of no ancient usage of our own even ; that 1 know of no law, 
maxim, principle or practice, to sanction that of which the Ame- 
ricans complain, and in resistance of which they are now armed 
and at war; and, therefore, 1 am of opinion, that to abandon this 
practice would be no dishonour to England. 

Lord Castiereagh talks of our right to " impress British seamen 
from the merchant ships of a foreign state," Impressment may 
take place in our ports and harbours, if confined to our own sea- 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. Ill 

rneu. America does not object to it. It is upon the high seas 
that she objects to impressment ; because (here the matter must 
be left to the discretion of the British officer. It is there a mere 
matter of power. There is no one to appeal to ; there is no um- 
pire ; there is no judge to look into proofs, and to decide. The 
searching officer may, under his discretion, take out as many men 
as he pleases — he may leave the ship destitute of hands necessary 
to conduct her a league ; and he may take out American citizens 
as well as English subjects. That this may be done is quite cer- 
tain, because it has been done in countless instances. Thousands 
of native Americans, thus impressed, have been released by our 
admiralty on the official application of the American agents ; and, 
who can doubt that many thousands remain unreleased? General 
Lyman, late American consul in London, once stated in a report 
to his government, that there were about 14,000 native Americans 
then on board our fleet, who had been impressed from on board 
American ships on the high seas. He might possibly exaggerate ; 
but it is not to be doubted that the number was, and has been, 
very considerable. And I beg your Royal Highness to take a 
serious view of the great hardships experienced by Americans thus 
mpressed. Taken from their lawful and peaceable pursuits ; 
dragged into a service, and forced under a discipline, so little con- 
genial with their habits and their prejudices; wafted away to sick- 
ly climates; exposed to all the clangers of battle, taken, perhaps 
for ever, from the sight and knowledge of their homes and friends ; 
and, if, by chance, (for it can be nothing more,) restored, at last 
restored, (as has often been the case,) with the loss of health or 
of limbs, and at the very least, with the loss of time, and that too 
in the prime of their lives; and carrying about them for the re- 
mainder of their days, feelings towards England which I need not 
attempt to describe. 

Your Royal Highness's heart will tell you, I hope, much better 
than I can, not what is, but what must be the effect of such a prac^ 
tice carried on against a people who are not only the children of 
Englishmen, but of those Englishmen who preferred freedom in a 
wilderness across the ocean, to slavery in their native land. That 
it is, sir, that has at last kindled the flame of war in a country 
where the very name of war was too hateful to be endured. 

But in answer to all this, it is said, by Lord Castlereagh, that 
" the naval strength of the empire mainly depends" upon the 
continuation of this practice of impressment. That is to say, if 
we take the whole of the facts into view, our naval strength main- 
ly depends upon a practice which exposes so many of the Ame- 
rican citizens to misery and ruin. The plain meaning of our per- 
severance in the practice is this : that if we do not continue it, 
our seamen will desert to the American ships in such numbers as 
to leave us without the possibility of obtaining a sufficiency of men 



U2 Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 

to man and fight our fleet. Supposing this to be the fact, it really 
forms no justification of the practice ; for we can have no right to 
put America to any inconvenience whatever, merely for our own 
benefit, or to save ourselves from loss or danger. The President, 
however, in order to show that he does not wish us to receive any 
injury in this way, and in order, if possible, to put an end to the 
war, has made a voluntary offer of a law to be passed in America 
to prevent our seamen from being admitted into American ships, 
upon condition that we will first abandon our practice of impress- 
ment, and give up, that is, restore to their liberty those native 
Americans whom we have already impressed. Mr. Russell, in 
his letter to Lord Castlereagh, says: 

" While, however, it regards this course as the only one which 
remained for it to pursue with a hope of preserving any portion of 
that kind of character which constitutes the vital strength of eve- 
ry nation, yet it is still willing to give another proof of the spirit 
which has uniformly distinguished its proceedings, by seeking to 
arrest, on terms consistent with justice and honour, the calamities 
of war. It has therefore authorized me to stipulate with his Bri- 
tannic majesty's government an armistice, to commence at or be- 
fore the expiration of sixty days after the signature of the instru- 
ment providing for it, on condition that the Orders in Council be 
repealed, and no illegal blockades to be substituted for them, and 
that orders be immediately given to discontinue the impressment 
of persons from American vessels, and to restore the citizens of 
the United States already impressed ; it being, moreover, well 
understood, that the British government will assent to enter into 
definitive arrangements as soon as may be, on these and every 
other difference, by a treaty to be concluded either at London or 
Washington, as, on an impartial consideration of existing circum- 
stances, shall be deemed most expedient. As an inducement to 
Great Britain to discontinue the practice of impressment from 
American vessels, I am authorized to give assurance that a law 
shall be passed (to be reciprocal) to prohibit the employment of 
British seamen in the public or commercial service of the United 
States." 

Really, sir, it is not possible, it appears to me, to suggest any 
thing more reasonable than this. I can form an idea of nothing 
more strongly expressive of a desire to put an end to the war. 
What ! shall it be said that England wages a war, when she might 
terminate it by such means ? I trust not, and that we shall not 
have to weep over a much longer continuation of this unfortunate 
contest. 

I know that there are persons who treat the idea of a law passed 
by the congress with contempt. But, if this is to be the course 
pursued,, the war will not soon have an end. We must treat 
America with respect. We must do it j and the sooner we be- 






Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 113 

gin the better. Some of the impudent hireling writers in London 
affect to say, that no credit is to be given to any act of the Ameri- 
can government ; that our officers ought not to believe the passports 
and certificates produced by the American seamen. If this is to 
be the tone, and if we are to act accordingly, there is no possibili- 
ty of making peace with America. Peace implies treaty and con- 
fidence ; but what confidence are we to have in a nation such as 
our hirelings describe America to be ? This arrogant, this inso- 
lent tone must be dropped, or peace is impossible. 

The fact of our impressing native Americans is affected to 
be denied, and Lord Castlereagh does not notice the proposition 
to restore those whom we have already impressed. But, sir, if 
the fact were not perfectly notorious, that thousands have been 
released by us, the letter of Captain Dacres, of the Guerrieie, re- 
moves all doubt upon the subject ; for, in that letter, intended to 
account for his defeat by the Constitution, he says, that part of 
his crew were native Americans, and they not choosing to 
fight against their country, he suffered them to be inactive spec- 
tators. Now, here we have the fact clearly acknowledged, that 
we had Americans unwillingly serving on board. And what a la- 
mentable contrast do we find in the same letter, with regard to 
some English seamen said to have been on board the Constitu- 
tion ; to which I beg leave to add, for your most serious moment, 
the fact, (if a fact it be,) that part of the crews of the victorious 
American ships, the Wasp and the United States, were English. 
Nay, it is stated in the Courier newspaper, upon what is asserted 
to be good authority, that two thirds of the crews of the Ameri- 
can ships of war are English seamen. If this be true, it is ano- 
ther and a most cogent reason for acceding to the terms of Ameri- 
ca, and putting an end to the war ; for the longer the war continues, 
the longer will continue a connexion from which such fearful con- 
sequences may ensue. 

At any rate, it appears to me, that our own safety, if the war is 
to be continued, will dictate the discharging of all the impressed 
Americans whom we may have on board of our ship3. Fight 
against their country they will not, unless they be forced, and who 
is to foresee and provide against the contagion of such an exam- 
ple? Against this evil, however, and against numerous others, 
which I forbear to mention, the measure proposed by the Presi- 
dent would completely guard us ; and the respect which it is my 
duty to entertain towards your Royal Highness, bids me hope 
that that proposition will finally be accepted. 

William Cobbett^ 
15 



1 14 Letters of William Cobhett, Esq. 



AMERICAN STATES. 

My two last numbers were devoted principally to the task of 
endeavouring to convince the Prince Regent, and the public, that 
it was neither dangerous nor dishonourable to yield to the terms 
upon which we might have had, and may yet have, peace with 
America ; and to my great mortification, though, I must confess, 
not much to my surprise, I now see, from the contents of the last 
Gazette, wherein is his Royal Highness's " declaration" that all 
my endeavours have been of no avail, and that war, long and ex- 
pensive, sanguinary war, will now take place with an enemy, who, 
above all others, is capable of inflicting deep wounds upon this al- 
ready crippled, or, at least, exhausted nation. From the first pub- 
lication of the letters which passed between Lord Wellington 
and Mr. Pinckney, soon after the French had announced their 
intention to repeal the Berlin and Milan Decrees; from the very- 
day of that publication, which took place soon after I was impri- 
soned in Newgate for two years, (with a fine to the king, which 
I have since paid, of a thousand pounds,) for having written and 
published upon the subject of flogging certain English militia men, 
at the town of Ely, in England, who had been first reduced to 
submission by German troops ; from the very day of that publica- 
tion 1 began to fear the present sad result of tbe dispute which had 
then assumed a new and more serious character than it had ever 
before worn. With that fear in my mind, I bent all my feeble 
powers towards preventing such result. 1 have failed ; opinions 
and councils the direct opposite of mine have prevailed ; and 
time will show who was right and who was wrong. 

Upon former occasions, the real grounds of war have but too 
often been lost sight of in the multitude and confusion of subse- 
quent events ; the government had the address to enlist the pas- 
sions of men on its side, and the voice of reason has been stifled. 
But here, as I was from the first resolved it should be, there is a 
clear, a distinct, an undisguised ground before our eyes ; we know 
well what we are at war for; we know, and must bear in mind, 
that we are at war for the purpose of enforcing our practice of 
stopping American vessels upon the high seas, and taking out of 
them all such persons as our naval officers may deem to be Bri- 
tish seamen. This is now to become the clearly defined subject 
of the war with America, The " declaration," which will be 
found below inserted at full length, does not contain any new 
matter : it is a summary of what our ministers have before alleged 
ami asserted in their correspondence with the American govern- 
ment and its divers agents. Bui there are some few passages of 
it which require to be particularly noticed. The question relating 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. lip 

to the Orders in Council has been before so amply discussed, in 
my several letters and articles upon the subject, that I will not en- 
cumber my present remarks with any thing relating thereunto ; 
but will confine myself to what relates to the impressment of per- 
sons out of American ships on the high seas. Upon this point 
the '• declaration" says : 

" His Royal Highness can never admit, that in the exercise of the 
undoubted, and hitherto undisputed right of searching neutral mer- 
chant vessels in time of mar, the impressment of British seamen, 
when found therein, can be deemed any violation of a neutral flag. 
Neither can he admit, that the taking such seamen from on board 
such vessels, can be considered by any neutral state as a hostile 
measure, or a justifiable cause of war. There is no right more 
clearly established than the right which a sovereign has to the 
allegiance of his subjects, more especially in time of war. Their 
allegiance is no optional duty, which they can decline and resume 
at pleasure. It is a call which they are bound to obey : it began 
with their birth, and can only terminate with their existence. If 
a similarity of language and manners may make the exercise of 
this right more liable to partial mistakes, and occasional abuse, 
when practised towards the vessels of the United States, the 
same circumstances make it also a right, with the exercise of 
which, in regard to such vessels, it is more difficult to dispense.'' 

The doctrine of allegiance, as here laid down, I admit, with 
some exceptions ; but as to the right of impressing British seamen 
on the high seas, out of neutral ships, I deny it to be founded on 
any principle or maxim, laid down by any writer on public 
law. Indeed, the "declaration" does not say searching neu- 
tral vessels in time of war, is "undoubted" and has hitherto been 
"undisputed." This is not correct ; for not only has even this 
right been doubted ; not only are there two opinions about it in the 
books on public law, but the writers on public law are, for the 
most part, against the said rights as we practise it, and they con- 
tend that we have no right to seize enemy's goods on board of 
merchant ships which are neutral. Nay, the contest has given 
rise to military resistance on the part of our now ally, Russia, 
Denmark, and Sweden ; and, what is still more, Great Britain 
ceased, upon their threats, to exercise this, even this, right of seiz- 
ing enemy's goods on board of neutral ships of war. But this 
right of searching: neutral ships ; what has it to do with the im- 
pressment of persons on board of such ships ? That is what the 
Americans object to, and are at war against. They are not at war 
against our rights of search, even in our own interpretation of that 
right. What they object to is, the stopping of their vessels on 
the high seas, and taking people out of them by force : a practice 
which, I repeat it, is sanctioned by no principle or maxim of any 
writer on public law, nor by any usage heretofore in the world. 



JIB Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

The " declaration" does not assert, as Lord Castlereagh 
did, in his Setter to Mr. Russell, that this practice is sanctioned 
by any former usage ; but it declares the right from the right of 
search. It says that, in exercising " the right of search, that is 
to say, the right of search for articles contraband of war, and for 
cnemifs goods, we have a right to impress British seamen, if we 
find them. So that this is the new shape of the defence of the 
practice : we do not now assert that we have a right to stop Ame- 
rican vessels upon the high seas, for the purpose of impressing our 
seamen ; but, having stopped them for the purpose of exercising 
our old " right of search," we have a right to avail ourselves of 
the opportunity to take out persons whom our own officers, at 
their discretion, may judge to be British seamen. This is not 
even plausible, in my opinion ; for, what right can we have to im- 
press, if we have no right to stop for the purpose of impressing ? 
I may enter another's house to search for a stolen coat, and 
if I find there my hat, I may seize it as well as my coat, having 
due authority for the first; but, be it observed, that to steal the 
hat was as criminal as to steal the coat; and if I had known or 
suspected that the hat was there, I might have had a search war- 
rant for the former as well as for the latter. 

The law of nations calls the high seas the common right of na- 
tions. A ship there is a parcel of the state to which she belongs, 
and the sovereign rights of that state travel with her. The sole 
exception is, as has been before stated, the belligerents have a 
right to search neutrals for goods of the enemy, and for warlike 
stores and troops, carrying for the enemy's use ; because, as far as 
neutrals are engaged in such a service, they are deemed to be in 
the service of the enemy. In all other respects a neutral ship car- 
ries with her, on the high seas, the rights of sovereignty apper- 
taining to the state to which she belongs. Now, it is well known, 
that no nation has a right to enter the territory of another to exer- 
cise any authority whatever, much less that of seizing persons, and 
carrying them away by force ; and, indeed, is it not fresh in 
every one's memory, what complaints were made against the 
French for entering the territory of the elector of Baden, and 
seizing the Duke of Enghein ? If we have a right to enter Ame- 
rican ships on the high seas, and take out of them, by force of 
arms, British seamen, what should hinder us from having the same 
right as to any seaports of America ? Nay, why should we not go 
and seize our numerous manufacturers, who have been (contrary 
to our laws) carried to America with cloths and cutlery ? Their 
alleging, that they went thither to avoid the effect of prosecutions 
for libel, or for some other of our state crimes, would be no bar 
to our claim upon them ; and, in short, they could never be sate 
to the last moment of their lives. 



Letters of Will lam Cobbeti, Esq. 117 

It is said, that the s men on board of American ships arc desert- 
ers. Be it so. We may be sorry that they do desert; but it is 
no crime in the Americans that our sailors go into America. Is 
it not well known that numerous deserters from the Austrian and 
Prussian armies have, at all times, deserted into the neighbouring 
states ; and is it not equally well known, that the neighbouring 
state has invariably possessed the undisputed right of giving them 
protection, and of enlisting them in its service ? Why, therefore, 
should we deem it a crime in America, whose abundance of lauds 
and provisions, whose high price of labour, aud whose happiness 
of the lower orders of mankind, hold out their arms to the whole 
world ? And here I cannot help introducing a remark upon the 
proposition made by Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Russell, that the 
American government should stipulate to deliver up all British 
seamen in the service of Americans. Mr. Russell is said to have 
expressed himself as having been shocked at this proposition, 
which has afforded an abundant theme of abuse by our hireling 
writers. But I have no scruple to say, that I firmly believe 
that it was a proposition that never was before made to any inde- 
pendent state ; even to the most petty state of Germany. There 
was a plan, some years ago, in agitation amongst the states of Eu- 
rope, for putting in force a mutual surrender of each others sub- 
jects, whereupon, the Abue Raynal remarks, that if it had gone 
into effect, each of the several states might have taken the motto 
of Dante over the entrance to his infernal regions : He who en- 
ters here leaves even "hope behind." He represents it as the ut- 
most stretch of tyranny ; a point, he says, which the world ought 
to perish rather than reach. And, therefore, though Lord Cas- 
tlereagh's proposition did not go this length ; though it was con- 
fined, to British seamen, we have no reason to abuse Mr. Russell 
for his expression. 

It will be said, may be, that Mr. Russell was ordered to stipu- 
late for the surrender, on our part, of all American seamen. Aye, 
but the difference is, that Mr. Russell proposed those only who 
had been impressed by us ; whereas, we wanted to stipulate for 
the surrender of those British seamen who had gone into Ameri- 
ca of their own freewill. We wanted to have surrendered to us 
men who were emplojed in American merchant ships ; they 
wanted us to surrender men whom we had seized in their ships, 
and forced into our men of war. But is it possible that any one 
can find any thing to object to in a request, that, as a preliminary, 
we should give up the Americans wLiom we had impressed into 
our service? What is the state of those men, now in service? 
What is their state ? Has the reader reflected upon this ? 
They must be useless on board of ships, they must not act ; 
they must do no seaman's duty ; or they must, according to 
our own doctrine, lately exemplified at Horsemonger-lane, be 
traitors, worthy of being hanged, ripped up, and cut in 



118 Letters of Williani Cobbelt, Esq. 

quarters. His Royal Highness's declaration says, that allegi- 
ance to his father, and his successor, begins with a man's birth^ 
and end with his death. And is it not the same with American 
citizens ? Do they not owe similar allegiance to their country ? 
Or is it about to be pretended, that none but kings can claim this 
sort of allegiance ? I do not think that any one, even of the wri- 
ters of the Times and Courier, will have the impudence to set 
up this doctrine; but this they must do before they can make 
out any good ground of charge against the Americans for having 
demanded, as a preliminary, the surrender of the impressed Ame- 
rican seamen. Captain Dacres, in accounting for the loss of his 
frigate, expressly states, that he had many Americans on board, 
whom he permitted to be spectators, from a reluctance to compel 
theai to fight against their country. And can the reader believe 
that this was the only instance in which native Americans were 
unwillingly serving on board of British ships of war ? What, then, 
again I ask, must be the state of those Americans ? And what are 
we to think of those writers who abuse Mr. Russell for proposing 
to us their surrender, as a step preliminary to any further arrange- 
ment 1 The declaration complains, that America demanded the 
abandonment of the practice of impressment as a preliminary to 
her passing a law to prevent British seamen from being received 
on board her ships. The hireling writers have treated this de- 
mand as something too insolent to be for a moment listened to. 
The u declakation" does not treat it in this lofty style ; but it 
speaks of it in pretty strong terms, as thus : " The proposal of an 
armistice, and of a simultaneous repeal of the restrictive measures 
on both sides, subsequently made by the commanding officer of 
his majesty's naval forces on the American coast, were received 
in the same hostile spirit by the government of the United States. 
The suspension of the practice of impressment was insisted upon 
in the correspondence which passed on that occasion, as a neces- 
sary preliminary to a cessation of hostilities. Negotiation, it was 
stated, might take place without any suspension of the exercise 
of this right, and also without any armistice being concluded : but 
Great Britain was required previously to agree, without any know- 
ledge of the adequacy of the system which could be substituted, 
to negotiate upon the basis of accepting ! he legislative regulations 
of a foreign state, as the sole equivalent for the exercise of a right 
which she has fell to be essential to the support of her maritime 



j> 



power. 

Well, and what then? " a right" it is called again; but if 
America denied it to be a right, as she has uniformly done, what 
wonder was there that she made the proposition ? Great Britain 
might "/ee/," though I should have chosen the word " deem" as 
smacking less of the boarding-school Miss's style, Great Britain 
might "feel" if feel she must, that the practice complained of was 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 119 

essential to the support of her maritime power ; but, did it hence 
follow that America, and that impressed Americans, should like 
the practice the better for that ? We have so long called our- 
selves the deliverers of the world, that we, at last, have fallen in- 
to the habit of squaring up all our ideas to that appellation; and 
geem surprised that there should be any nation in the world in- 
clined to wish for the diminution of our power. The Americans, 
however, clearly appear to see the thing in a different iii;ht. They, 
in their homespun way, call us any thing but deliverers ; and it 
must be confessed, that, whatever may be our general propensity, 
we do not seem to have been in haste to deliver impressed Ame- 
rican seamen. 

That one nation ought not to }'ield a right, depending for com- 
pensation solely upon the legislative provisions of a foreign state, 
is very true ; but if the right be doubtful ; if it be unsupported 
by any law, principle, maxim, or custom, then the case is differ- 
ent ; and then, indeed, the offer of a legislative provision is a proof 
of a sincere desire to accommodate. If my view of the matter be 
right, and I verily believe it is, this is the light in which that of- 
fer ought to be viewed ; and 1 most deeply lament that it was not 
thus viewed by the ministers. These lamentations, however, 
are now useless. The sound of war is gone forth; statement and 
reasoning are exhausted ; the sword is to decide whether England 
is, or is not, to impress, at the discretion of her naval officers, per- 
sons on board American merchant ships on the high seas. There 
is one passage more in the "declaration," upon which I cannot 
refrain from submitting a remark Or two. After stating that Ame- 
rica has made only feeble remonstrances against the injuries she 
has received from France, the "declaration" this "memorable 
document," as the Courier calls it, concludes thus: "This. dispo- 
sition of the government of the United States ; this complete sub- 
serviency to the ruler of France; this hostile temper towards 
Great Britain ; are evident in almost every page of the official 
correspondence of the American with the French government." 

" Against this course of conduct, the real cause of the present 
war, the Prince Regent solemnly protests. Whilst contending 
against France, in defence not only of the liberties of Great Bri- 
tain, but of the world, his Royal Highness was entitled to 
look for a far different result. From their common origin ; from 
their common interest ; from their professed principles of free- 
dom and independence, the United States were the last power, in 
which Great Britain could have expected to find a milling instru- 
ment, and abettor of French tyranny. Disappointed in this just 
expectation, the Prince Regent will still pursue the policy which 
the British government has so long and invariably maintained in 
repelling injustice, and in supporting the general rights of nations ; 
and under the favour of providence, relying on the justice of 



120 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 






his cause, and the tried loyalty and firmness of the 1 
his Royal Highness confidently looks forward to a sue 
of the contest in which he has thus been compelled most fei.it last- 
ly to engage." The last paragraph is in the old style, and will 
hardly fail to remind Mr. Madison of the documents of this kind, 
issued about six-and-fhirty years ago. However, the style is 
none the worse for being old; though une cannot but recollect the 
occasion upon which it was formerly used. 

I regret, however, to find, in this solemn document, a distinct 
charge against the American government of " subserviency to the 
ruler of France ,*" because, after a very attentive perusal of all 
the correspondence between the American and French govern- 
ments, I do not find any thing which, in my opinion, justifies the 
charge. The truth is, tjhat the u ruler of France" gave way in the 
most material point to the remonstrances of America; and I have 
never yet read a message of Mr. Madison, at the opening of a ses- 
sion of Congress, in which he did not complain of the conduct of 
France. The Americans abhor an alliance with France ; and if 
th^y form such an alliance, it will have been occasioned by this 
war with us. This charge of subserviency to Buonaparte has a . 
thousand times been preferred against Mr. Madison, but never, 
that I have seen, once proved, it is, indeed, the charge which 
we have been in the habit of preferring against all those powers 
who have been at war with us ; Spain, Holland, Prussia, Denmark, 
Sweden, and, though last, not least, Russia, as will be seen by a 
reference to Mr. Canning's answer to the propositions from Til- 
sit. " Subserviency to Ihe ruler of France!' 9 We stop the Ame- 
rican merchantmen upon the high seas ; we take out many of their 
own native seamen ; we force them on board of our men of war ; 
we send them away to the East Indies, the West Indies, or the 
Mediterranean ; we expose them to all the hardships of such a life, 
and all the dangers of battle, in a war in which they have no con- 
cern : all this we do, for we do not deny it; and when, after manv 
years of remonstrance, the American government arms, and 
sends forth its soldiers and sailors to compel us to desist, we 
accuse that government of " subserviency to the ruler of France" 
who, whatever else he may have done, has not, that I have ever 
heard, given the Americans reason to complain of impressments 
from on board their ships. Many unjust acts he appears to have 
committed towards the Americans : but he has wisely abstained 
from impressments, which, as I have all along said, was the only 
ground upon which the people of America could have been pre- 
vailed upon to enter heartily into a war with any power : it is a 
popular ground : the war is the cause of the people : accordingly, 
we find the motto to the war is: "Liberty of the seas, and sea* 
men's rights. " 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 121 

I, therefore, regret exceedingly, that the " declaration" styles 
America " a willing instrument and abettor of French tyranny.*' 
It is a heavy charge ; it is one that will stick close to the memory 
of those who support the war ; it will tend to inflame, rather than 
allay the angry passions ; and, of course, it will tend to kill all 
hopes of a speedy reconciliation. As to what the ** declaration'* 
is pleased to say about the " common origin" of the two nations, 
if of any weight, it might be urged, I suppose, with full as much 
propriety by the Americans against our impressments, as it is now 
urged against their resistance. I remember that it was urged with 
great force in favour of American submission to be taxed by an 
English parliament; but, as the result showed, with as little effect 
as it possibly can be upon this occasion. There is one thing in 
this " calling cousin," as the saying is, that I do not much like. 
The calling cousin always proceeds from us. The Americans 
never remind us that we are of the same origin with lheni. This 
is a bad sign on our side. It is we, and not they, who tell the 
world of the relationship. In short, it is well enough for a news- 
paper to remind them of their origin ; but I would not have done 
it in a solemn declaration ; especially when I was accusing them 
of being the willing instrument and abettor of the enemy. " Com- 
mon interest ;" that, indeed, was a point to dwell on ; but, then, 
it was necessary to produce something, at least, in support of the 
proposition. The Americans will query the fact; and, indeed, 
they will flatly deny it. They will say, for they have said, that 
it is not for their interest that we should have more power than 
we now have over the sea ; and that they have much more to 
dread from a great naval power, than from an overgrown power 
on the continent of Europe. They are in no fear of the emperor 
Napoleon, whose fleets they are now a match for ; but they are 
in some fear of us ; and, therefore, they do not wish to see us 
stronger. 

It is in vain to tell them that we are fighting in defence of the 
" liberties of the world." They understand this matter full as 
well as we do, and, perhaps, a little better. I should like to hear 
my lord Castlereagh, beginning with the declaration against the 
republicans of France, continue on the history of our hostilities 
to the present day, taking in those of India by way of episode, 
and concluding with the war for the right of impressment, make 
it out how we have been, and are defending the liberties of the 
world. I dare say his lordship could make it out clear enough. 
I do not pretend to question the fact of his ability ; but it would 
be at once instructive and entertaining to hear how he would do it. 
" From their professed principles of freedom ;" From these, the 
"declaration" says, that his Royal HighnesB expected the 
United States would have been the last power to become the 
willing instrument of French tyranny. Very true: of French 

16 



122 Letters of William C'obbelt, Esq. 

tyranny, but that did not hinder him from expecting them tobe 
the enemy of impressing men from on board their ships; ani 
it should have been shown how this disposition proved them to be 
a willing instrument of French tyranny, or of any tyranny at all*. 
It is useless to revile ; it is useless to fly off to other matter. We 
impress men on board of American ships upon the high seas ; we 
take out (no matter whether by mistake or otherwise) American 
seamen as well as English ; we force them to fight on board our 
ships ; we punish them if they disobey. And when they, after 
years of complaints and remonstrances, take up arms in the way 
of resistance, we tell them that they show themselves the willing 
instruments and abettors of French tyranny. I wish sincerely 
that this passage had been omitted. 

There are other parts of the " declaration" that I do not 
like ; but this part appears to me likely to excite a great deal of 
ill will ; of lasting, of rooted ill will. 1 do not like the word 
" professea," as applied to the American principles of freedom : 
the meaning of that word, as here applied, cannot be equivocal, 
and assuredly would have been better left out, especially as we 
never see, in any of the American documents, any expression of 
the kind, applied to us and to our government. But, to take 
another view of the matter, why should his Royal Highness expect 
the Americans to be disinclined towards France, because they 
profess principles of freedom 1 Why should he, on this account, 
expect that they would lean to our side in the war ? Does the 
declaration mean to say, that the government of France is more 
tyrannical than was that monarchy, for the restoration of which 
a league was made in Europe in the years 1792 and 1793 ? From 
its tone, the declaration may be construed to mean that our go- 
vernment is more free than that of France, and that, therefore, 
we might have expected the Americans, who profess principles 
of freedom, to be on our side in a contest against " French ty- 
ranny." Hem ! mum ! well, well ! We will say nothing about 
the matter ; but it must be clear to every one, that the Ame- 
ricans may have their own opinion upon the subject ; and they 
may express it too, until we can get at them with an ex officio* 
They may have their own opinion upon the matter ; and their 
opinion may possibly differ from ours. They are, to be sure, at 
a great distance; but they are a reading, and an observing, and 
a calculating people; and I'll engage, that there is not a farmer 
in the back states who is not able to give a pretty good account 
of the blessings of " English liberty" 

Besides, leaving this quite out of the question, supposing the 
Americans should think us freemen, and the French slaves, why 
should that circumstance prevent them from leaning to the side of 
France? What examples of the effect of such morality amongst 
Rations have the regent's ministers to produce? How often have 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 123 

we seen close alliances between free and despotic states neither 
free nor despotic ? How often have we been on the side of des- 
pots against free states ? England was once in offensive alliance 
with France against Holland ; Holland and France against 
England ; and it ought never to be forgotten, that England, not 
many years ago, favoured the invasion of Holland, and the subju- 
gation of the States-General by a Prussian army. Have we not 
formed alliances with Prussia, Austria, Russia, Spain, Naples, and 
all the petty princes of Germany, against the republic of Fiance? 
Nay, have we refused, in that war, the co-operation of Turkey 
and Algiers ? And as for the old papa of Rome, " the whore of 
Babylon," as our teachers call him, his alliance has been account- 
ed holy by us, and his person an object of our care and protec- 
tion. Why then are we to expect that America is to refrain from 
consulting her interests, if they be favoured by a leaning towards 
France? Why is she to be shut out from the liberty of forming 
connexions with a despotism, supposing a despotism ^ow to exist 
in France? The truth is, that in this respect, as in private life, 
it is interest alone that guides and must guide ; and, in my mind, 
it is not more reasonable to expect America to lean on our side on 
account of the nature of the government of our enemy, than it 
would be to expect a presbyterian to sell his sugar to a church- 
man, because the only man that bade him a higher price was a 
catholic. Here I should stop ; but an article upon the same sub- 
ject, in the Morning Chronicle of the J 3th instant, calls for ob- 
servation. 

Upon the falsehoods and impudence of the Times and the 
Courier, that is to say, the principal prints on the side of the Welles- 
ley party, and that of the ministers, I have remarked often enough. 
I was anxious to hear what the whigs had to say, and here we 
have it. Mr. Ponsonby and Mr. Brougham had pledged them- 
selves to support the war, if America was not satisfied with the 
repeal of the Orders in Council ; and here we have the grounds 
of that support. On this account the article is interesting, and, of 
course, worthy of an attentive perusal. 

" Notwithstanding the tedious length of the papers on both sides, 
the question between the court of London and the government of 
the United States is simply the rigid of impressment of seamen 
en board trading ships ; and this is, in truth, the sole cause of the 
war. If we were to examine the value of this cause to the two par- 
ties, it cannot be denied but that to the Americans it is exceeding- 
ly slight, and to the British highly material. The Americans 
cannot regard it as an insult, because it is a right which has been 
at all times asserted and acquiesced in by sovereign stales re- 
spectively. Then, viewed as an injury, what is it? That they 
shall go to war to prevent British subjects, who have forfeited 
their allegiance, abandoned their country, and left their families,, 



124 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

probably starving, from being impressed on board their merchant 
vessels ; that is to say, they claim the right to afford an asylum and 
employ to the refuse of the British na\y — men without principle, 
for it is only the profligate that are likely to become the objects 
of their protection. In this view, then, the point is of little conse- 
quence to the Americans ; but it is interesting to the British to as- 
sert the power inherent in every state to reclaim its subjects ; and 
the time may come when the principle would be equally important 
to America herself. But, say the American ministers, it is not so 
much the right itself, as the violent and insulting mode of exercising 
it that we complain of; for we have, upon reflection, agreed on the 
principle of international law, that free bottoms do not make free 
goods, and therefore we have no objection to the search of our 
merchant ships for contraband of war ; but, in that case, whenever 
warlike stores, &c are found on board an American vessel, she is 
detained and carried into a port for adjudication by a competent 
court. Whether the adjudication be always impartial or not, is 
another affaft, but in this respect nations are on an equal footing, 
and these admiralty courts, well or ill conducted, are recognized 
by all maritime nations. But with respect to the impressment of 
seamen, the act is violent because summary, and because it is 
subject to no revisal — to no adjudication — and because the indivi- 
dual seized has no means of redress. By this sort of reasoning there 
is a tacit admission part of America, that it is not to the act 

much as to the manner of the act ; and, 

ggestions made by the Americans, for 

>ion on the means of getting over the 

1 is exercised, and of giving securi- 

in question. On the other side, 

-adiness of the British government 

proposition on this subject, coming from 

though he would not enter into a ne- 

..ary to which should be the concession of this 

.. we think he was clearly right. But is it not mon- 

tffo people of common origin, and of almost inseparable 

a, should remain at war on a point upon which there is so 

.d difference between them ? Surely, without any sacrifice of 

etiquette on either side, the expedients might be canvassed by 

which this mighty cause of war might be removed. Let each 

party promulgate their thoughts on the subject, and if there bean 

honest disposition to peace, it must follow. The agreement ought 

to be so drawn as to make it most dangerous to the captain of an 

American ship to employ a British seaman on board ; and, on the 

other side, to make it equally dangerous for a British captain to 

seize and carry off an American seaman, under pretext of his 

being a Bsitish subject. Or, in other words, it ought to be made 

their interest to abstain from those two causes of national offence. 



itself which the 
according!* 
enterip' 
ou* 






ont ; 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 125 

Various modes have been suggested for this purpose. The most 
effectual undoubtedly would be to ordain, by a treaty, that the 
subjects of each power, if found on board the merchant's vessels - 
of the other, should be considered in the nature of contraband of 
war, inasmuch a3 their natural sovereign was thereby deprived of 
their service in war, and that that should be a cause to detain the 
vessel for adjudication. By this the American captain, or his 
owners, would most seriously suffer by having British seamen on 
board ; and, on the other hand, the British captain would equally 
suffer, if he had all the risk and loss to incur of an improper deten- 
tion. Against this, however, the arguments are strong. The 
American captain may have been imposed upon by the similarity 
of language, &c. ; and when brought into one of our ports, where 
there is a competent court to adjudge the point, a real American 
seaman might find it impossible to adduce proofs of his nativity. 
Besides, in both events, the penalty would be inordinate. Ano- 
ther suggestion has been made, that the British naval officer im- 
pressing a seaman on board an American vessel, and vice versa, 
should be bound to make a certificate (or what the French call 
proces verbal) to the fact, one copy of which he should deliver 
to the American captain, and transmit the other to the admiralty 
to be filed ; and that the seaman seized should have his action for 
damages in the court of law, the certificate to be produced by the 
admiralty as proof of the trespass, if the person can prove himself 
to be a native of the country that he pretended to be. We con- 
fess we think thatthis ought to satisfy both governments, for this 
would make officers cautious in exercising the right, which, at 
the same time, cannot be safely surrendered." 

This is poor paltry trash. But it contains one assertion which 
I declare to be false. It is here asserted, that " the right of im- 
pressment of seamen on board of trading ships, is a right which 
has at all times been asserted, and acquiesced in by sovereign 
states respectively !" I give this an unqualified denial. I say, 
that it is a right which no nation has before asserted, and /hat no 
nation ever acquiesced in. Let the Morning Chronicle name the 
nation that has ever done either; let him cite the instance of such 
a practice as we insist upon; let him name the writer, every En- 
glish writer, on public law, who has made even an attempt to main- 
tain such a doctrine; nay, let him name (he writer who has laid 
dow-n any principle or maxim from which such a right can possi- 
bly be deduced. And if he can do none of these, what assurance, 
what a desperate devotion to faction must it be to enable a man to 
make such an assertion. The assertion of the "value of the 
cause" being slight to America, in comparison to what it is to us, 
has no better foundation. The value! what is of value, what is of 
any value"at all, if the liberty and lives of the people of America 
are of no v&lue? And when we know, when no man will deny, 



226 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 

when official records of the fact exist, that hundreds of native 
Americans have been impressed and sent to serve on board our 
ships of war; when this is notorious; when it neither will nor can 
be denied, what is of value ? As to the proposition of making Eng- 
lish seamen " contraband of war," it is so impudent, it is so 
shameful, it is even so horrid, that I will do no more than just name 
it, that it may not escape the reader's indignation ; indeed, there 
needs no more than the reading of this one article to convince the 
Americans, that all the factions in England are, in effect, of one 
mind upon the subject of this war ; and I am afraid that this con- 
viction will produce consequences which we shall have sorely to 
lament, though I shall, for my own part, always have the satisfac- 
tion to reflect, that every thing which it was in my power to do, 
has been done, to prevent those consequences. 

Wm. Cobbett= 

Botley, 14th January, 1813. 



AMERICAN WAR. 

It will be useless, perhaps, but I cannot refrain from calling the 
attention of the pubiic once more to the gross delusions practised 
upon it by the hired prints, with regard to this war. At first 
they said that there would be no war ; that war was the cry of 
the mere rabble ; and that though Mr Madison was himself cor- 
rupted by France, the congress were not. When the congress 
met, they, however, actually declared war. Then our hirelings 
told us, that the people were enraged with both President and 
congress, and that, as the election of President was approaching, 
they would turn Mr. Madison out, and that thus the war would be 
put an end to. That election has now terminated ; but until the ter- 
mination, or, rather, the result, was known, we beard of nothing 
but the* certain defeat of Mr. Madison. He was sure to lose his 
election ; and, indeed, several successive arrivals brought us the 
news of his having actually lost it. To which was added, that 
his rival, Mr. Clinton, had pledged himself to make peace with 
England. At last, however, comes the news, that Mr. Madison 
was re-elecled ! After this, one would have supposed that the 
hireling press would, at least, have kept silence upon the subject; 
but, no ; it had still a falsehood left ; and it is now telling the peo- 
ple, the " thinking people" of England, that, next year, there will 
be a re-election of the senate, when Mr. Madison will have a ma- 
jority of ten against him in that body, and that, in consequence of 
such change, he will be compelled to make peace with us. What 
a people must this be to be thus deceived ! And still to listen to 
such publications; aye, and to rely upon them, too, as ioi* 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 12? 

plicitly as if they had always spoken the truth ! Nothing can, 
however, be more flattering to the Americans than these state- 
ments, which show how uneasy this country is under the war with 
them ; how sorely we feel the effects of it ; and how anxious we 
are to get out of it. There is a coxcomb, who publishes in the 
Times newspaper, under the signature of VETUS, who would 
fain make us believe that the people of America, or, at least, the 
agricultural part of the population, are a sort of half savages. If 
Vetus had to write to them, he would not find many fools enough 
to tolerate his sublimated trash. He imputes their dislike to Eng- 
lish politics to their ignorance. He does not know, perhaps, that 
they, to a man, (if natives,) are as well acquainted with all our 
laws as we are ourselves ; that they know all about our excise taxes, 
and custom house taxes, and assessed taxes, and property taxes, full 
as well as we do; and that they know all about our law of libel, our 
sinecures, and our paupers. If he were to go amongst them, and 
to have the impudence to tell them that these are proofs of civiliza- 
tion, they would, or, at least, I hope so, make him remember the 
assertion as long as he had life in his carcass. The Americans 
have always had their eyes fixed upon us ; and does this foolish 
man imagine, that they do not know how to set a proper value 
upon our system of government ? When they come to England, 
as some of them do, they sometimes reach London by the way of 
Blackrvater, where, while they behold immense places for the 
education of officers of the army, they see ragged, or rather na- 
ked, children tumbling along the road by the side of their chaise, 
crying as they go, " Pray bestow your charity ; pray bestow your 
charity /" The Americans know how to estimate these things. 
They are at no loss to draw the proper inferences from such facts ; 
and it is not the trash of Vetus about civilisation that will cloud 
their reasoning. The American farmers are great readers. There 
are absolutely none of them who do not read much. They know 
that we pay more in poor-rates only, than double the amount of 
the whole of their revenue ! That fact alone is enough for them. 
"With that fact before their eyes, they will be in no ha3te to at- 
tain what this fop calls a high state of civilisation Besides, as 
to the fact, all those who know America, will say that the farmers 
there are a class of men beyond all belief superior in understand- 
ing to those of England, or of any country of Europe. They 
have plenty; they have no dread of the tax-gatherer ; their minds 
are never haunted with the fear of want ; they have, therefore, 
leisure to think and to read. And as to what he says about their 
being absorbed in the love of gain, the fact is the reverse. They 
have no motives to acquire great wealth, other than the mere vul- 
gar love of money, seeing that no sum of money will purchase 
them distinction, seeing that millions would not obtain them a bow 
from even a negro. 



128 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

That is a country where the servant will not pull his hat off to 
his employer, and where no man will condescend to call another 
man his master. Hence it is that the American farmer makes no 
very great exertions to become rich. Riches beyond his plain: 
wants are of no use to him. They cannot elevate him ; they can- 
not purchase him seats; they cannot get him cities ; they cannot 
obtain commissions or church benefices for his sons ; they can do 
nothing for him but add to his acres, which are already, in most 
cases, but too abundant. He has, from these causes, much lei- 
sure, and that naturally produces reading, particularly when the 
residence is in the country. So that the half wild man, whose 
picture has been drawn by Vetus, is wholly foreign from the 
reality of the American farmer. The American farmer does not 
hate England. He hates a taxing system ; but he does not want 
mar with England. He wants to have nothing to do with her ; 
and though he hates war, he is more afraid of a connexion with 
her than with a war against her. He wishes to see all those who 
will be connected with her expelled from his country ; and, there- 
fore, he is pleased to see the makers of knives and coats rise up in 
his own country. To bring about this, to create manufactures in 
America, was the policy of Mr. Jefferson ; an object which has 
been now attained, through the means of our hostility and of the 
revolution in Spain. The continuation of the war for about three 
years longer will for ever put an end to English connexion ; and 
thus, the grand object of Mr. Jefferson's policy will have been 
secured during his probable lifetime. This silly fellow, Vetus, 
seems to be wholly ignorant of the subject. He knows nothing 
either of the character or interests of the American people. He 
senselessly urges on the war, without at all perceiving the conse- 
quences to which it leads. He does not perceive that it will ef- 
fectually deprive our government of the power of again taxing the 
coat, or the candlestick, of the American farmer. He does not 
perceive, that it will stop from our treasury many millions a year. 
When he is talking of the folly of introducing manufactures into 
America,' he does not perceive, that that is the most deadly blow 
that the Americans can give to our taxing system. From the 
empty verbiage of this writer, who has been well termed an old 
battered hack, I come to something of more importance, namely, the 
debate of the 18th instant in the house of commons, upon the 
subject of the war with America. I, perhaps, should not call it 
a debate, where, as to the only point at issue, all the speakers 
seem to have been of one mind and sentiment. But be it what it 
may, it is of great importance to the liberties of mankind ; and as 
such, I shall notice it somewhat in detail. Lord Castlekeach 
(aye, that is the man, Americans!) opened the discussion in the 
character of Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs. This man's 
name is well known to the world. This is now the man who, 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 129 

after Perceval, is to maintain the justice and necessity of a war 
against America- 

The' papers relating to the negotiation between the two coun- 
tries had been laid before the house ; and, in consequence of this, 
Lord Castlereagh, on the ltith, brought forward a motion for " an 
address to the Prince Regent, expressing the regret of parliament 
for the failure of the negotiation, and pledging themselves to a 
zealous and cordial co-operation with his Royal Flighness in the 
prosecution of the war, in support of the rights and interests of 
Great Britain, and honour of His Majesty's crown." This motion 
was carried with a unanimous voice, just as similar motions used 
to be during the former American war, when about forty of such 
addresses were carried up to the king. I shall now proceed to 
notice such parts of the speeches as seem to me worthy of parti- 
cular attention. Lord Castlereagh set out with relating what had 
passed in regard to the Orders in Council, and alter having re- 
ferred to the time and manner of their repeal, and to the pledges 
of support of the war given in case that repeal should fail of pro- 
ducing peace with America, he said, as it is stated in the report 
in the Morning Herald, that " he, therefore, now flattered him- 
self, that government would meet with that support which had 
been so liberally promised. If this wa3 reallv found to be the 
case — if every attempt had been made that justice or forbearance 
could suggest to conciliate America ; and if, notwithstanding, she 
had issued a declaration of war, and persisted in carrying it on, 
after the concessions that had been made, where was the man that 
could refuse his assent 1o carry on the war with vigour adequate 
to our means? America would thus see the united efforts of the 
country, and the unanimity of the house, that had been called forth 
by the line of policy that she had pursued. If they looked at 
the documents that had been published by the American govern- 
ment as the grounds of the war, they should look at peace as an 
object very distant, because the American government placed the 
war on such extensive grounds as could not be removed, by this 
country." 

It is very true, that there were people in the house of commons 
who promised to support the war if the repeal of the Orders in Coun- 
cil failed to satisfy the Americans ; but 1 made no such promise; 
and, therefore, I, though a fly amongst eagles, am at liberty to 
express my disapprobation of the war. Nay, I most distinctly/ 
said, at the time, that the repeal of the Orders in Council would not 
satisfy the American people. I bad, indeed, said so many months 
before ; and I had said it upon a knowledge of the fact. That 
I all along said, that unless we ceased to impress persons out of 
American ships upon the high seas, we should have war ; and, 
therefore, when the ministry were, by Mr. Brougham, reduced to 
the necessity of repealing the Orders in Council, I, in an address 

n 



y 



130 Letters of William Cobbdt y Esq. 

to the Prince Regent, prayed him to add a relinquishment of the 
practice of impressment, without which, I positively asserted, that 
the other measure would fail of its desired effect. Nevertheless, 
Mr. Ponsonby, as the leader of the wbigs, did promise support to 
the war, if the repeal of the Orders failed to satisfy America ; and 
Mr. Brougham did the same. The country was thus misled, and 
was prepared for a justification of the war. The manufacturers, 
some of whom came to see me in Newgate, where I had been 
imprisoned for two years, and sentenced to pay a fine of a thousand 
pounds to the king, which I have since paid to his son, in his 
behalf, for having written and published upon the subject of the 
flogging of some local militiamen, in the town of Ely, in England, 
who had been first quelled by German troops ; here, I say, in 
this prison, I saw some of the manufacturers, who, after the 
success of Mr. Brougham's motion, were preparing to return 
home, full of joy in the assurance of a renewed and uninterrupt- 
ed intercourse with America, and I told them, that they ought to 
moderate their joy ; for that Mr. Brougham's success would not 
produce the effect they expected, but that, on the contrary, his 
pledge to support a war, if that measure failed to ensure peace, 
might be attended hereafter with infinite mischief. They did not 
absolutely laugh in my face, but I could clearly perceive that 
they did not believe a word that I said, and that they attributed 
my gloomy predictions to a feeling which, though I might have 
been excused for possessing it, really was a stranger, as far as 
that subject went, to my breast. The truth is, that they saw no 
importance in any thing but commerce ; they saw nothing in im- 
pressments to make a nation go to war ; they regarded it as mad- 
ness to suppose that a nation would suspend its commercial gains 
for a single hour for the sake of a few thousands of men impressed 
by a foreign power. I, however, knew the disposition of the free 
people of America better ; I had heard the declaration of the con- 
gress on the subject ; I knew that that body, whose seats are not 
bought ^nd sold, spoke the voice of the people ; and, upon this 
ground, together with other grounds that I need not be particular 
in naming, I founded my assurances to the manufacturers, that the 
repeal of the Orders in Council would not answer the end they 
expected from it, and I could not help it. I must confess feeling 
some slight degree of anger against the manufacturing bodies, 
when I saw them meeting to vote thanks to Mr. Brougham, with- 
out taking the smallest notice of my incessant efforts to prevent 
that destruction of their hopes which I saw would speedily tread 
upon the heels of their exultation. However, this feeling has 
long been extinguished in my breast, and I only regret that I am 
without, the power of affording any portion of assistance to the 
poor suffering wretches in the manufacturing districts. To return 
now to the debate : Lord Castlereagh talks of concessions made 



Letters of miliam Gobbett, Esq, 131 

to America in the repeal of the Orders in Council. I have often 
shown, that there was, according to the laws and usages of nations, 
no concession at all. Nay, there was, according to our own doc- 
trine ; according to our own part of the correspondence ; no con- 
cession made to America. The thing is shown as clear as day- 
light, in two words. We all along avowed, that, in themselves 
considered, our Orders in Council were a violation of the neutral 
rights of America ; but we asserted that they were justified by 
the violation of those same rights committed by Napoleon, and we 
declared that we would cease our violation the moment France 
ceased hers. France did cease : we had, according to our own 
declaration, proof that France had ceased before we made the 
repeal. We then ceased ; but I put it to the common sense of 
the reader, whether this cessation ought to be called a concession. 
Thus, according to our own doctrine; according to our own 
diplomatic correspondence ; according to our own more solemn 
acts, the Orders themselves, and the declaration of repeal ; accord- 
ing to all these, we made no concession at all to America. 

Why then talk about concession ? It may have an effect here ; 
but assuredly it will have none in America, where the government 
(a government chosen by, and resting upon, the free and unbought 
voice of the people) have constantly protested against our Orders 
in Council, as an open and gross violation of the known and acknow- 
ledged rights of America, and as receiving not a shadow of justi- 
fication from the violent and unjust conduct of France. To talk, 
therefore, of concessions, seems to me to be something intolera- 
ble ; but to expect that the people of America would, after the 
solemn declaration of congress to the contrary ; to expect that they 
would disarm upon our ceasing to violate one of their rights, while 
a still more grave subject of complaint existed ; to entertain such 
an expectation as this, appears unaccountable upon any other suppo- 
sition than that of our ministers and members of parliament being 
wholly deficient in knowledge relative to the opinions and feelings 
of the American people, and the means of the American govern- 
ment. Besides, there was another consideration connected with 
the repeal of the Orders in Council ; and that was, that by the 
repeal we merely announced our intention to cease to violate a 
right. We said nothing about compensation for the past. This 
was very material ; for it was impossible that it should be over- 
looked by the American government, without an abandonment of 
all the principles upon which it had resisted the Orders in Coun- 
cil. I also pointed this out at the time, for which I was treated as 
a fool and a friend of France by a Scotch newspaper. The manu- 
facturers of Paisley will, by this time, have discovered, that I 
was a better friend of England than their impudent countryman, 
and that I foresaw an obstacle to peace which had escaped the eyes 
of both the parties in parliament ; for Lord Castlereagh now tell? 



132 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

us, that such compensation was demanded as a preliminary to a 
cessation of hostilities ' The Orders in Council," he said, W were 
notv wholly out of the question, by the overture for an armistice 
on both sides ; but even on the ground of the repeal of the Or- 
ders in Council, the American government had pressed the matter 
go far, and in such a temper, as to admit of no amicable arrange- 
ment. Mr. Russell had put in claims to have indemnity for all 
captures made by our cruisers under the Orders in Council since 
1806. He did not say that this might not have been given up, 
but, as the question stood, it evidently appeared that America 
had shown no disposition (o be satisfied with the forbearance of 
this country." Well, if this might have been given up on our 
side, why not give it up at first, and set what if would do ? How- 
ever, the demand was made, we see, and i said it would be made. 
The American government could not avoid making it, without ex- 
posing itself to the detestation of the people, as a base abandoner 
of their rights ; rights so long contended for, and sought to be re- 
dressed by means ot so many and such large sacrifices.- Now, 
our ministers, and Mr. Ponsonby, and Mr. Brougham, ought to have 
foreseen that this demand would be made. In not foreseeing it 
they showed a want of knowledge upon the subject, and also a 
want of knowledge as to the circumstances in which America stood 
with regard to France, from whom she was, and still is, demand- 
ing indemnity upon exactly the same principle that she makes the 
demand on us. The reader cannot be too often reminded of the 
origin and nature of the Orders in Council. They arose, as we 
ahege, out ox the French Decrees of Berlin and Milan, the two 
places at which the Emperor was when he signed them. These 
Decrees violated neutral rights on the seas ; but it was declared 
in the preambles to them, luat this violation was rendered neces- 
sary by certain Orders in Council of England, which enforced a 
greater violation of neutral rights. We, upon the appearance of 
these Decreea, issued other Orders in Council, enforcing other 
violations of neutral rights. Both parties were complained of by 
America. Both parties call their measures retaliatory. Both 
parties allowed that their measures violated neutral rights. Both 
parties said they regretted that the measures had been forced up- 
on them. Each party declared, over and over again, in the most 
solemn manner, that the moment the other removed or relaxed his 
measures, be should find a joyful imitator iu the party declaring. 
America protested against the conduct of both. She said to us 
that we had no right to violate her rights because they were vio- 
lated by France ; and to France she said, that she had no right 
to violate her rights because they were violated by us. At last, 
to put the sincerity of the two parties to the test, she passes a 
law, which sa)s, that if before ihe 1st of November, 1310, both 
parties have repealed their Decrees, their commercial and friendly 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 133 



intercourse with her shall continue : that if one party does repeal, 
and the other does not repeal by that day, then her ports shall be 
shut against the non-repealing power in February, 1811. Napo- 
leon, in the month or August, 1810, issued a Decree, by which his 
violating Decrees stood repealed on the 1st of the following Novem- 
ber. Tins new Decree was communicated to our ministers by the 
American minister in London, who expressed his hope that, agreea- 
bly to our many solemn declarations, we should hasten to follow 
the example o! France. Our ministers answered in a sort of a 
vague way ; but, at any rate, they did not repeal ; and in Febru- 
ary, 1811, the law went into effect against us. Our goods and 
our vessels were shut out of the American ports, while those of 
France were admitted. We asserted that Napoleon had not re- 
pealed his Decries. America asserted that he had, but we would not 
believe her. We insisted that she did not know the fact near 
so well as we did. In short, we continued to refuse to repeal. 
At last, the great distresses, and consequent complaints of the manu- 
facturers, led to an inquiry, at the bar of the house of commons, 
into the etfects of the Orders in Council, when such a mass of 
evidence was produced by Mr. Brougham in support of the pro- 
position, that the non- importation law oi America was the princi- 
pal cause of those distresses, that the ministers (Perceval being 
dead) gave way; and the Orders were repealed. This is the 
plain and true history of the matter ; and I particularly wish the 
reader to bear in mind, that our Orders had, up to the moment of 
Napoleon's repeal of his Decrees, always been acknowledged by 
us to contain a violation of the known rights of neutrals ; but, in. 
our justification, we said, that it was forced upon its by the De- 
crees of the enemy. This was our language up to the moment of 
Napoleon's repeal. But what says Lord Castlereagh now. ? So 
far from acknowledging that the Orders in Council enforced a vio- 
lation of any known neutral right, he contends (if the report of 
his speech be correct) that they were founded on our known pri- 
mitive right. The words, as they stand in the report, are these: 

<? The Orders in Council had been a point on which consider- 
able difference of opinion in this country had prevailed, but they 
had been abandoned, not so much on the ground of this country 
not having the kiuht, as with a view to commercial expediency. 
He rather wished, however, to waive the renewal of that branch 
of the question, now that the whole proceedings of government 
were before the house. With respect to the main principles of 
that system, ministers were still unaltered in their opinion, when 
the conservation of the country rendered it necessary to resort to 
it. At the time the measure was adopted, such a system was 
necessary, not only as it respected France, but as connected with 
the soundest policy for the general interest of the British empire* 



131 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

Had it not been for the manly resistance given by that measure 
to the power of France, France now would have been as triumph- 
ant, in a commercial point of view, as she was with respect to 
the continent. He begged he might always be considered as an 
admirer of that system." Now, I state that the Orders in Coun- 
cil themselves, and the papers of our diplomatic agents, and the 
speeches of Sir William Scott, almost explicitly acknowledge, 
that the measure was to be justified only on the ground of its be- 
ing a retaliation on France ; and that, in the two former is ex- 
pressed his Majesty's earnest desire to imitate France in doing 
away these obnoxious measures. This was the language up to 
the moment when the repeal of the French decrees was announced 
to us. Our language has, indeed, since changed ; and it was 
during the debates upon Mr. Brougham's motions, coolly argued, 
that the repeal of the Orders would make the Americans the car- 
riers of the commerce of the world. But though we have changed 
our language, it does not follow that America should change hers. 
She always contended that by the Orders in Council her rights 
were violated ; she always contended, that all the seizures we 
made under those Orders were unjust ; and, of course, she de- 
mands indemnity for those immense seizures. But is it really so ? 
can it be possible ? can the thing be that a secretary of state 
has asserted in open parliament, that without any reference to the 
conduct of France, and that though the decrees of Napoleon did 
not exist, we had a right to do what was done towards neutrals 
under the Orders in Council ; and that, whenever we think proper, 
we have a right to do the same again ? If this be so ; if this asser- 
tion was made by the minister for foreign affairs, and if it be meant 
to be maintained, then, certainly, the war with America will be long 
indeed. Reader, what was it that was done in virtue of these Orders 
in Council ? I will give you an instance. An American-built 
ship, owned by a native American, manned by native Americans, 
Jaden with flour, or any thing else, the growth of America, and 
bound from America to France, or to any other country, named 
in the Orders in Council, was seized on the high seas by any of 
our vessels of war, carried into any of our ports, the ship and 
cargo condemned, and the master and his crew turned on shore 
to beg, or starve, or live and find their way home as they could. 
This was done in virtue of the Orders in Council, and if the re- 
port be correct, this is what we have a right to do towards neutrals 
again, "whenever the conservation of the country" calls for it; 
ftiat is to say, whenever our government thinks proper to cause it 
to be done ! Now, I will not waste my time and that of the reader 
by any discussion upon maritime and neutral rights ; but I will 
just ask him this one question : If we have a right to act thus to- 
"wards America, whenever we think proper, she being at peace 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 1-3'S 

with us, what can she lose in the way oHrade, what can she risk 
in changing that state of peace for a state of war ? In my next I 
shall discuss the other points brought forward in this debate. 

Wm. Cobbett. 



AMERICAN WAR. 

This war, which was spoken of by the hireling of the Times 
newspaper, and others, with such ineffable contempt, has now- 
assumed a very formidable mien ; and those who were so eager 
for the war begin to revile each other with regard to the conduct- 
ing of it. 

There are, at this time, three political factions in the country ; 
the one that is in possession of the distribution of the public 
money ; the whig faction ; and the faction of the Wellesleys and 
Cannings. The two latter would join if they could ; but each 
aims at the possession of the power of giving places and pensions ; 
and, in short, at being the ministry. These two, therefore, cannot 
agree wholly ; but they both attack, though upon different occa- 
sions, and different grounds, those who are in possession of the 
paradise of Whitehall. 

Amongst other objects of attack is that of negligence as to the 
American war. The Chronicle and Times are equally bitter 
against the ministers upon this subject ; they revile them for 
having plunged the country into a war with America without 
providing a sufficient maritime force to cope with that new enemy. 
A sufficient force ! Why, the Times newspaper spoke of the 
navy of the United States as a thing not worthy of the name ; it 
laughed at " Mr. Madison and his navy ;" it predicted that a few 
months would add that navy to our own ; it, in short, spoke of it 
in a tone of contempt which I should in vain attempt to describe. 
And yet, it now blames the ministers for not having provided a 
sufficient force to cope with that contemptible navy ; that navy, 
which was an object of the most cruel ridicule. 

The defeat and capture of the Guerriere, the Frolic, and the 
Macedonian, must, of course, be matter of astonishment to thos 
who listened to the language of these presumptuous and foolish men; 
but in what respect are the ministers to blame for it any more 
than they were for the evacuation of Madrid, and for all the conr 
sequences of the unexpected retreat of our army in the Peninsula ? 
The ministers had a great abundance of ships, of all sizes, on the 
American station ; and what were they to do more ? 

I recollect, and so must the reader, ihat at the time of the t&ar. 
GOunter between Commodore Rodgers and Captain Bingham, the 
w.ord^ in the mouths-of atl these writers were : H Tjet one. of our 



136 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq, 

frigates meet with Rodgers, and we ask no more." This wish ; 
this challenge, was repeated a thousand times over; the public 
cannot have forgotten the fact ; nay, the sentiment was universal. 

Upon what ground, then, are the ministers now to be blamed ? 
Are they to be blamed, because, upon trial, it has been found that 
our frigates are not a match for those of America? Are they to be 
blamed, because they did not entertain a meaner opinion of our 
frigates, compared with those of America, than any other man in 
England entertained, or, at least, dared to say that he entertained ? 
We are told by the writers in the interest of the two out fac- 
tions, that the republican frigates are bigger, longer, have heavier 
guns, and the like, than our frigates have. " The varlet's a tall 
man /" said Bobadil, when be had been cudgelled. But are these 
new discoveries ? Were the facts not all well known before to all 
these writers, when they so boldly challenged out the American 
frigates to combat with ours? When Rodgers attacked Bingham, 
the size of his ship was well known, and particularly described ; and 
yet not one of them called for heavier ships to be sent out to the 
American coast. Why, then, are the ministers to be blamed for 
not sending out heavier ships ? Besides, they have heavier ships 
upon the station, and it cannot be their fault if those ships do not 
fall in with the American frigates. W T hat are they to do with our 
frigates ? It ours are unable to face the American frigates, what 
are, I ask, the ministers to do with them? Are they not to suffer 
them to go on a cruise, lest they should fall in with a tall Yankee? 
In short, it is another of the tricks of faction to blame the ministers 
for these misadventures of the navy ; and the attempts made by 
the ministerial prints to account for our defeats noon the ground of 
our inferiority of force, is another of *iie means made use of to 
deceive the people, and to encourage them in the continuation of 
the war. 

When, until now, did we think of disparity of force ? When, 
until now, did we dream of an English ship surrendering to a ship, 
the superiority of the force of which it required a minute calcula- 
tion to show ? When, until now, did an English captain hesitate 
to attack a ship of a few guns more than his own? Instead of 
all the calculations that we have seen in newspapers ; instead of 
those swelled-out accounts of the vast force of the American 
frigates, we should be plainly told, that we have now an enemy to 
cope with, equal fo ourselves as far as numbers will go. 

Amongst all the calculations and computations, however, that we 
have heard, I have not perceived it any where taken into account, 
that we have experience, which the Americans have not. Where 
did Iriaac Hull gain his naval experience ; and where did Decatur? 
There are two Decatnrs, the father and son. They were my 
neighbours in the country, in Pennsylvania. They were farmers 
more than seamen, though the elder went occasionally to sea as 



Lf tiers of William Cobbett, Esq. 23? 

«coimiiander of a merchant ship. If it be the father who has taken 
the Macedonian, he must be upwards of threescore years of age ; 
and if it be the son, I am sure it is the first battle he ever was 
in ; for twelve years ago he was but a mere lad. The father 
was a man of great probity and of excellent sense ; and I have no 
doubt that the son is the same ; but, I'll engage, they both have 
had more experience in raising Indian corn than in naval tactics. 

Something, therefore, in our estimates, should be allowed for 
our superiority in point of experience. We have no officer of the 
navy who has not passed a great part of his life in actual service ; 
we have scarcely one who has not beeu in numerous battles ; and, 
in the unfortunate cases above spoken of, one of the captains ap- 
pears to have been of long standing, even in that rank. 

When we are speaking of the naval preparations of Napoleon, 
we always dwell upon the difficulty of his forming naval officers — 
but here we see, in the case of America, that that is attended with 
no difficulty at all; we here see gallant and consummate com- 
manders start up in a trice ; and in a moment is dissolved the 
charm which bound us in ignorance as to this important species of 
information. 

The truth is, I believe, that amongst the first qualities of a 
naval commander, are sobriety, vigilance, and consideration for 
his crew ; and these qualities are within the reach of every man. 
The American government, too, has a wide range for choice ; 
with it, no intrigues, commonly called " interest" is likely to pre- 
vail ; because the possession of the powers of the state depend 
solely upon the will of the people; and the government, having 
such support, is not reduced to the necessity of seeking support 
from any individuals ; and, of course, is not exposed to the 
danger of being compelled to employ, as commanders, or as offi- 
cers of any rank, persons not recommended by their own good 
qualities. This is a very great advantage possessed by the 
American government; an advantage to which, perhaps, it owes 
those successes which we so sorely lament, and which seem to be 
very likely to form an era in the naval history of the world. 

But let what will be the final result of these transactions, I 
really can see no ground for accusation against the ministers on 
account of the misfortunes that have befallen our frigates. Blamed 
they may be for tlic war. There, indeed, there is matter for 
blame ; because, if my reasoning upon the subject be correct, 
they might have avoided the war without any dishonour to Eng- 
land ; but for this they cannot be blamed by those who are seek- 
ing for (heir places ; because some of those very persons were 
amongst the men who adopted and adhered to the measures which 
produced the war, and the rest of them have pledged themselves 
to prosecute it upon its present ground. Mr. Canning and Lord 
Wellesley were, in succession, secretaries of state for foreign 

is 



138 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 

affairs, while the dispute was maintained against the abolition of 
impressment of persons on board of American ships. Indeed, 
the former has expressed his disapprobation ot the " concessions,' 7 
as he calls them, made to America in the repeal of our Orders in 
Council. Of course, he cannot complain of the ministers for going 
to war; and Mr. Ponsonby, as the organ of the whigs, distinctly 
declared, that if America was not satisfied with that repeal, he 
would support the war against her. Not, therefore, being able to 
find fault with the ministers for the war itself, they fall upon them 
as to their manner of conducting it ; and, as I think I have shown, 
they do this without a shadow of justice. We "jacobins" blame 
all the three factions ; some of them for causing the war, and 
others for pledging themselves to support it ; nor have i the least 
hesitation to predict, that day after day will tend to convince all 
persons of impartiality that we are right. 

This war we owe entirely to the presumption inspired by our 
foolish and venal writers. T^e language of (he late Perceval, who 
talked of not wishing for the " destruction" of America, and who 
spoke of her as of a power depending on his will for her very ex- 
istence; this language, which will long be remembered, was the 
general language of the press. We could not believe it possible 
that a government, the whole of the officers of which, president 
and all, did not receive from the public so much money annually, 
as one of our sinecure placemen ; we could not conceive that a 
government who did not get more mon.iy for itself, would be able 
to get money enough to carry on a war more than sufficient to 
last our sloops for a few months. We have now found our mis- 
take; and, indeed, the premises which we had in our eye should 
have led to a directly different conclusion ; for would not common 
sense have told us, that the less of the public money was taken 
by the officers of government for their own use, the less of it that 
was devoured by placemen and by others for no services rendered 
the public, the more there must be for the government to employ 
in the public service ? This would have been the rational con- 
clusion ; but to reason thus suited not those who had, and who 
have the control over ninety-nine hundredth parts of the press of 
this country. They, therefore, represented America as a nation 
destitute of warlike means, when they should have made an esti- 
mate of her resources upon the grounds stated in my last number. 
The persons in high offices in America are badly paid ; but (and 
the fact is worth great attention) those in low rank, or no rank at 
all, are well paid. The former have very small salaries ; their 
gains are much less than those of any considerable merchant or 
manufacturer, lawyer or physician ; but the common soldier and 
sailor are paid at a very high rate ; at such a rate as not to make 
him regret his change from civil life. I should not say, perhaps, 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 139 

that the former are badly paid ; because there is something in the 
honour of high office which the common man does not enjoy; 
and besides, there is something due from every man to his coun- 
try ; and the greater that his stake is in the country the less is 
his right to draw from her purse. Mr. Madison does, I dare say, 
expend, as president, every shilling of (he 6,000 pounds that, as 
president, he receives. And why should he not ? What claim 
would he have to the title of patriot, if he grudged to use his ta- 
lents for his country ; or, which is the same thing, if he refused to 
use them without being paid tor their use? If such were his dis- 
position, what claim would he have to the confidence ot his fellow- 
citizens? But, with the common soldier or sailor, or other infe- 
rior person employed by the government, the case is wholly differ- 
ent. He has nothing but his labour for his inheritance ; he pos- 
sesses no part of the country ; his time is his all ; and, of course, 
he is paid for that at as good a rate as if he laboured for an indi- 
vidual. 

Those who speculate upoB the resources of America should not 
overlook these important circumstances ; but hitherto, I am sorry 
to say, that we have almost wholly overlooked them. I never shall 
forget the obstinacy of many persons with whom I am acquainted as 
to the intention of the American government to go to war. They 
persisted to the very last, that it was impossible. They called 
the declaration of congress "bullying;" they said it was "all 
smoke," and so, indeed, said the hired press, that vehicle of lies, 
that instrument of ill to England. They have found some fire as 
well as smoke ; they have found that the republicans have some- 
thing at their command beside words : and when it is too late, I 
fear that they will find that this is the most fatal war in which we 
have yet been engaged. One effect of it appears to me to be in- 
evitable ; and that is, the creation of a navy in America. Pray, 
good hired men, do not laugh at me ; for I am quite serious, when 
I say, that my fear is that this war will lead to the creating of a 
formidabk navy in America. The means are all in her hands, 
and her successful beginning will not fail to give activity to those 
means. 

A navy, a military marine in America, is, to me, a most formi- 
dable object. Twenty frigates only would cause an expense to 
us of millions a year, unless we resolved to yield the West-India 
Islands at once. I would not advise our government to look upon 
the rearing of an American navy as something necessarily distant. 
America has swelled her population from about two to about eight 
millions in the space of less than thirty years. Another ten years 
may see her population amount to twenty millions. From not 
being permitted to " make a hobnail," she has risen to be an 
exporter of numerous useful manufactures. I state it as an 



14$ Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

undeniable fact, that she is now able to supply herself with all the 
articles necessary to man, even in polished life. And if this bs 
so, why should she not be able to rear a navy, having already 
nearly as great a mercantile marine as our own. Whether it will 
be for her happiness that she should do this 13 another question ; 
but that she will do it, I think, is most likely; because, in the mass 
composing every society of men, there is generally a sufficient 
uumber on the side of power and glory to decide the nation in fa- 
vour of the love of those captivating objects. This war, there- 
fore, if not speedily put an end to, will, in my opinion, not fail to 
make America a manufacturing nation, as far as her own wants 
call for, and to make her also a naval nation; and will thus, at one 
stroke, deprive us of our best customers fo^r goods, and give us, 
upon the seas, a rival who will be daily growing in strength as well 
as in experience. In my preface to the republication of Mr. 
Chancellor Livingston's Treatise on Merino Sheep, 1 showed how 
necessarily it would follow from the introduction of flock keeping 
in America, that she would become independent of us as to wool- 
lens. Nevertheless, and in spite of all the facts which have from 
time to time been published relative to the manufacturing of cloths 
in that country, there are still men to treat with ridicule, aye, even 
■with ridicule, the idea of America being able to make her own coats 
and blankets. I remember that, while I was in Newgate for two 
years, for writing about the flogging of the local militia, at the 
town of Ely, in England, under the superintendence of German 
troops, there came a gentleman, who was, I believe, a dealer in 
wool, to ask my opinion relative to the future commerce with Ame- 
rica. After having spent about a quarter of an hour in a detail 
of facts, which, in my mind, contained proof unquestionable that 
the woollen trade with America was for ever at an end, he began 
a sentence upon the surprising increase of the manufactures in 
America, which he concluded in words to this effect: "I dare 
saj, that in less than half a century we shall not ship a bale of 
cloth to that country." This put me in mind of the effect that 
the Botlej Parson's sermons used to have upon me ; and I lost no 
time in changing the subject of conversation. I am not one of 
those who shall regret this independence of America, which I do 
not think will prove an injury to England in the end ; but I 
could have wished the change to have been less abrupt, and effect- 
ed without war, and without the animosities and sufferings insepa- 
rable from war. To me it appears as absurd as it is unnatural, 
thai the American farmer should not have his coat untaxed at the 
custom house in England I can see no sense and no reason in it. 
Nor do I see why the people of England, or any portion of them 7 
should make coats or knives, or any thing else, for the use of other 
countries, except merely in such quantities as may be necessary to 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 141 

exchange for wine and oil, and some few other things which reallj 
are useful to man. 

The use or commerce is to effect an exchange of the products 
of one climate for those of another ; but government have turned 
it into the means of taxation, and, in many cases, that appears to 
be its only object. An exchange of English coal for French 
mine, the former at 30s. a chaldron, and the latter at 6d. a bottle 
in London ; that would, indeed, be a commerce to be contempla* 
ted with pleasure. But a commerce carried on under a code of 
prohibitions and penalties, such as those now everywhere in ex- 
istence, is not to be desired. It is an instrument of taxation, and 
an endless source of war, and is nothing more. Those, however, 
who are of a different opinion, may look upon the war with Ame- 
rica as one of the surest means of destroying, or, at least, diminish- 
ing for ever the best branch of what they admire ; but while I 
blame the ministers for the war, I must say that the merchants 
and manufacturers (I mean the powerful ones) have no right to 
blame them. The ministers, in their measures towards America, 
have done no more than pursue that same system at which those 
merchants and manufacturers have a. thousand times, and in the 
strongest terms, expressed their approbation. At the outset of 
this long and destructive war, who stood forward so readily in sup- 
port of it as this class of persons ? The war-whoop has invariably 
originated with them. They indulged the selfish hope of seeing 
themselves in possession of all the trade and all the riches of the 
world. The English newspapers contain a record of their love of 
war, of war against any body, as long as it promised gain to them* 
They have, over and over again, called the war which began in 
an invasion of France by the Duke of Brunswick, " a just and ne~ 
cessary war ;" but, of late, they appear to have been taught by 
their poor books and the list of bankrupts, that the war is not 
quite so "necessary," however "just" they may still think it. 
They have, I repeat it, no right to complain against the ministers, 
who have not deviated from the system of Pitt and Grenville, and 
who, with regard to America, are only acting upon the very same 
objects that have been acted upon and pursued from the year 
1792 to the present day ; and the manufacturers are tasting, as 
is most meet, of the fruit of the tree of their own planting and 
protecting. 

TVm. Cobbett. 



HECOLONIZATION OF THE AMERICAN STATES. 

It was easy to believe that the enemies of freedom would, up- 
on this occasion, turn their baleful eyes towards the United States 
of America, and endeavour to stimulate our government, whi>, let 



242 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

us hope, however, has too much sen.se to be so worked on, t& 
wage a war for the destruction of liberty in the western world. 
But I, who fully expected to see this, am really astounded at the 
speed and the boldness with which the project has been brought 
forward in some of our public prints, especially the Times, which, 
in plain terms, urges a war against the United States upon the 
same principles that the close of the war has been carried on 
against NapoSeon j and, indeed, which aims at the subjugation 
and recolonisalion of that country. Before I proceed any fur- 
ther, I shall insert the article which has called forth these obser- 
vations. 

" It is understood that part of our army in France will be ifft- 
mediately transferred to America, to finish the war there with the 
same glory as in Europe, and to place the peace on a foundation 
equally firm and lasting. Now that the tyrant Buonaparte has 
been consigned to infamy, there is no public feeling in this coun- 
try stronger than that of indignation against the Americans. That 
a republic, boasting of its freedom, should have stooped to become 
the tool of that monster's ambition ; that it should have attempted 
to plunge the parricidal weapon into the heart of that country 
from whence its own origin was derived ; that it should have 
chosen the precise moment when it fancied that Russia was over- 
whelmed, to attempt to consummate the ruin of Britain—all this 
is conduct so black, so loathsome, so hateful, that it naturally 
stirs up the indignation that we have described. Nevertheless, 
there is, in this case, the same popular error that there was, not 
long since, when France was identified in the minds of most men 
with the name of Buonaparte. The American government is, 
in point of fact, as much a tyranny (though we are far from say- 
ing it is so horrible a one) as was that of Buonaparte : and as 
we firmly urged the principle of no peace with Buonaparte, so, 
to be consistent with ourselves, we must in like manner maintain 
the doctrine of NO PEACE WITH JAMES MADISON. 
The reasons for this are twofold, as respecting this country, and 
as respecting America. A very little reflection will render them 
sufficiently manifest. In the first place, hatred of England is the 
fundamental point in the policy of Mr. Madison. He is the 
ostensible organ of a party, all whose thoughts, feelings, and sen- 
timents are guided by this master key. Some of the statesmen 
of this school have not blushed to assert in full senate, ' that the 
world ought to rejoice, if Britain were sunk in the sea ;' if, where 
there are now men, and wealth, and laws, and liberty, ' there were 
no more than a sandbank for the sea-monsters to fatten on, a space 
for the storms of the ocean to mingle in conflict.' Such is the 
deep-rooted antipathy which these wicked men have to the land 
of their forefathers ! With such men Mr. Madison acts ; and 
he himself, before the accession of his party to power, expressly 



Letters of William Cobbeil, Esq, 143 

bid it down as a principle, (on the discussion of Mr. Jay's nego- 
tiation,) ' that no treaty should be made with the enemy of 
France.' His love for the latter country, however, was but an 
adjunct of the hatred which he entertained towards us : and he 
hated us for the very same reason that Buonaparte did — be- 
cause we stand in the way of any state that aspires at universal 
dominion ; for, young as is the transatlantic republic, it has al- 
ready indulged in something more than dreams of the most unmea- 
sured ambition. We need not here detail the long history of fraud 
and falsehood by which he at length succeeded in deluding his 
countrymen into war. Suffice it to say, he had two objects in 
that war ; first, to sap the foundations of our maritime greatness, 
by denying the allegiance of our sailors; and, secondly, to seize 
on our colonial possessions on the main land of America, leaving 
it to a future occasion to lay hands on our insular settlements in 
the West Indies. Perhaps, when he finds himself unexpectedly- 
deprived of the buckler under which he aimed these stabs at our 
vital existence — the mighty Napoleon, the protector in petto of 
the Columbian Confederacy — he may be willing to draw in his 
horns, and sneak away from his audacious undertakings. But 
shall we have the extreme folly to let him off thus ? When we 
have wrested the dagger from the bravo's hand, shall we quietly 
return it to him to put up in its sheath? No, no. Mr. Madi- 
son himself, in his very last public speech, has furnished us with 
a most apposite rule of conduct, which he cannot blame us for 
adopting, since he avowedly follows it himself— namely, that we 
should ' not only chastise the savages into present peace, but make 
a lasting impression on their fears. Hitherto we have consi- 
dered the Americans as identified with Mr. Mapison's govern- 
ment ; but is this the fact? So much the reverse, that it has been 
openly proposed in some of the states to treat for peace with 
Great Britain separately ; and they would act wisely and justifi- 
ably in adopting this measure. The eastern states ; the most 
moral, the most cultivated, the most intelligent, the best in every 
respect, are at this instant reduced to a complete thraldom by the 
southern states, under the forms of a constitution which the pre- 
vailing faction violates at pleasure. '.The small states,' says 
Fishek Ames, 'are now in vassalage; they obey the nod of 
Virginia. The constitution sleeps with Washington, having 
no mourners but the virtuous, and no monument but history. Our 
vote and influence (those of the eastern states) avail no more than 
that of the Isle of Mm in the politics of Great Britain." If this 
was true before the annexation of Louisiana, how much more 
strikingly so now, that that addition has quite broken down all 
balance between the states, and poured an irresistible stream of 
corrupt influence into the channel of the executive ! What is very 
remarkable is, that the preponderance of the southern states is 



£44 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

chiefly owing to the slaves they contain ! The number of votes 
which each state has in the national government, is determined 
by the whole population. Hence, though the slave has no politi- 
cal existence, he gives a weight to his master over a tree man in a 
different state ; and by another curious, but not uncommon para- 
dox in human nature, the slave owner there is generally a furious 
democrat, and the democrats have hitherto been the most servile of 
the tyrant's adherents. Clear, therefore, is it, that the free con- 
stitution of the United Slates is either incompelent in itself to af- 
ford an equal protection to the wisest and best parts of the union; 
or else that constitution has been violated and overthrown by the 
faction of which Mr. Madison is the ostensible head ; and in 
either case, the oppressed states would act justly to themselves 
$o separate their interests from those of the incapable and trea- 
cherous individual who has dragged them reluctantly into a war 
no less inglorious than unjust. When we speak of these and 
the like crimes, as perpetrated by Mr Madison individually, we 
only mean to use his name in the common way in which persona 
in eminent stations are generally spoken of. He stands at the 
head of the list, not but that Mi. Gallatin may be more artful, 
Mr- Clay more furious, Mr. Jeffkk^on more malignant, and so 
on ; and besides, there is a ferocious banditti belonging to his party, 
of whom, perhaps, he himself stands in awe, and who, as they con- 
sist of Irish traitors, and fugitive bankrupts, and swindlers, from all 
parts of the United Kingdom, may easily be conceived to exceed 
even the native Americans in rancour against Great Britain : but 
the more shameless and abandoned the individuals are who com- 
pose this faction, the greater odiura must be cast on Mr. Madison 
himself, in the eyes of the moral and reflecting part of the Ameri- 
can population, it is a great mistake to suppose that the United 
States are wholly deficient in characters of this latter description. 
They have had many wise and many eloquent men, whose words 
yet live in the hearts and in the meditations of their countrymen. 
Mr. Walsh, the accomplished editor of the American Review, 
has attained a high literary reputation even in this country ; and 
though the late Fisher Ames (the Burke of the western hemis- 
phere) is not so much known in this country, he deservedly en- 
joys a much greater popularity in America. These, and many 
more such writers as these, have kept alive the fire of genuine 
British liberty in the United States. Whilst, on the other hand, 
the miserable blunders of the Dearborns, and Hopkins's, and 
Wilkinsons, and Hamptons, and all the long list of defeated 
generals, have thrown a ridicule on that invasion of Canada which 
was one of the great baits of the war. Lastly comes the fall of 
Mr. Madison's grand patron, attended with the execration and 
scorn of all Europe. Can we doubt that a vigorous effort on our 
part will annihilate the power of a faction alike hostile to BriA 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 1 4S 

'tain and fatal to America? Is not the time propitious for 
winning at least the sounder and better part of the Americans 
to a union of interests with the country from whence they 
sprung ? 

It is impossible to read this article without being convinced that 
there are men who seriously entertain the wish to see America 
recolonized ; who wish to see our king restored in America, as 
the Bourbons have been in France ; for Mr. Madison is the 
chosen president of the union ; he does nothing of himself; it is 
the president, the congress, and the people, all acting in concert. 
Yet he is to be put down ; no peace is to be made with him any 
more than with Napoleon ; the government of the states is a 
tyranny; the constitution is violated, oris inefficient; its exist- 
ence is inimical to lasting peace ; the time is propitious for win- 
ning the sounder part of the states, at least, to a union of interests 
with the country from whence they sprung. These are sentiments 
and declarations to begin with; but, in fact, they go the whole 
length of recolonization ; and that is the project now on foot 
amongst the foes of freedom, who seem to be resolved to prove to 
us, that those friends of liberty in America who did not wish for 
the extinguishment of Napoleon, despot as he was, were not with- 
out sound reasons for their sentiments. They saw that, though, 
he had betrayed the republican cause, if he were put down, there 
would be men ready to urge projects of the description of that of 
which we are now speaking. This language towards the United 
States was never made use of; sentiments like these were never 
hazarded while Napoleon was in power ; but the moment he is 
down, these men turn (heir hostile eyes towards America, the only 
republic left upon the face of the earth ! Our quarrel with Ame- 
rica ceases with the war. There being peace in Europe, the 
quarrel is at an end without any discussions. But this writer 
passes over all the subject of quarrel. The American president 
and government are bad. That is now, according to him, to be 
the ground of the war; and we are to have no peace with them. I 
will pass over the impudent falsehoods which this writer utters as 
to the conduct of Mr. Madison, and the nature and effects of the 
American government; and come at once to what is most interest- 
ing to us now ; namely, first, whether a war for the recovery of 
the American states as colonies would be popular in England ; 
and, second, whether it would be likely to succeed. As to the 
first, I have no hesitation in expressing my belief, that it would 
be, for a while at least, the most popular war in which England 
was ever engaged, the reasons for which opinion I will now state. 
In the first place, peace, real and lasting peace, and a vast reduc- 
tion of our forces, would be total ruin to a great number of persons 
and families. All these will wish for war, no matter with whom, or 
upon what grounds. They will be for the war for the sauie reason 

19 



UG Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

that undertakers are for deaths, and without being, any more thaa 
these, chargeable with any malicious motive. The farmers will be 
for war upon much the same principles ; they being of opinion, 
no matter whether erroneously or not, that war makes corn dear. 
Here are two very numerous classes of persons. A third is the 
land owners in general, who believe that peace will lower their 
rents wilhout lowering their taxes. The ship owners and builders 
fear America, who can build and sail much cheaper than they can, 
and who, if left at quiet, would cover the sea with their ships. The 
great manufacturers ever will be for a war, likely, as they think to 
tear up, root and branch, those establishments which are not only 
supplying America herself, but must, in a few years, especially 
with the emigration of artisans to America, become our rival, and 
supplant us all over the world. Besides, if America were to be 
recovered, we should, they think, have a monopoly of supplying 
her. Even the stockholders, though they might generally wish 
for peace, might probably be persuaded that the recolonization of 
America would afford the means of lessening the national debt; 
that America might be made to bear a share of the debt j that 
the lands there might be sold for our account ; and, in short, that 
this might be made an immense source of income, and an infallible 
security to the paper system. Of politicians there will be two 
descriptions for the war: one will see in America a dangerous 
maritime rival; a maritime power which grows, like her own Indian 
corn, almost visible to the eye. They will mix this apprehension 
wilh the feelings of mortification and revenge arising from the naval 
victories of America, which are not be washed away by the fall or 
Napoleon, nor of fifty Napoleons at his heels. These are honour- 
abie-rainded men, loving their country, not able to endure the idea 
of her ever, at any time, ceasing to be mistress of the ocean, and 
so terrified at that idea as to lose sight, in the pursuit of a preven 
live remedy, of all notions of justice, humanity, and freedom. An 
other description of politicians, animated solely by their hatred ol 
whatever gives liberty to man, will see in America what, indeed, 
ihey have always seen, and for which they have always hated her, 
an asylum for the oppressed ; a dwelling for real liberty ; an ex- 
ample of a people, enjoying the height of prosperity and the great- 
est safety of person and property, without any hereditary titles, 
without any army, and almost without taxes; a country, where 
the law knows nothing about religion or its ministers ; where everj 
man pursues his own notions in religious matters; where there art 
no sinecures, no pensions, no grants of public money to individuals 
where the people at large choose their representatives in the 
legislature, their presidents, governors, and sheriffs ; where briber} 
ami corruption are unknown; and where the putting of a crimina 
to death is nearly as rare as an eclipse of the sun or moon. Thii 
description of politicians look at America as Satan is said to faavi 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 14? 

eyed our first parents in the garden of Eden ; not with feelings of 
envy, but with those of deadly malice. They would exterminate 
the people, and burn up the country. The example of such a 
people, " sears the eye-balls." They will tell us, that while that 
example exists, nothing is done ; nothing is secured ; nothing is 
safe ; they will endeavour to terrify the government and the nation 
by describing the emigrations which will take place from Europe; 
the numbers of artisans and of people of enterprise that will crowd 
to America, adding to her population, extending her knowledge, 
increasing her means of all sorts, and enabling her, in a short time, 
to spread far and wide what they call her disorganising princi- 
ples. This last description of politicians have the press greatly 
in their hands ; the press is the most powerful instrument j and it 
will, in this case, have prejudice, supposed private interests, 
passion, and all, in favour of its efforts. These are the reasons on 
which I found my opinions as to the popularity of such a war ; but 
yet I hope and trust that the ministers and Prince Regent will not 
be carried away by such notions. It is for them to consider what is 
best for the country, and permanently best ; and not to suffer their 
judgment to be warped by an outcry, proceeding from the selfish- 
ness of some and the rage of others. With regard to the second 
question, whether a war for the recolonization of America would 
be likely to succeed, I think it would not. I must, however, con- 
fess that I agree with the author of the above article, that " the 
time is propitious" in the highest degree. Not only have we an 
army ready organized; composed of the best stuff; best com- 
manded ; best appointed and provided ; best disciplined in the 
world ; but we do not know what to do with it in the way of 
employment, and it would be, for a year at least, as expensive in 
peace as in war. We have more than a sufficiency of ships of 
war to carry this army across the Atlantic, without crowding, 
and without the aid of a single transport. 

In Europe we have nothing to fear ; France will, for some years, 
have enough to do at home. It is the same in Spain and Hol- 
land ; and, besides, what are any of them to do without fleets, and 
where, in the whole world, is there a fleet, but in England ? Now, 
then, what are the Americans to do against this army and this 
fleet ? I have no doubt that our army would waste the seacoast ; 
that it would at first beat the Americans wherever they met 
them; that it would, if it chose, demolish some towns and oc- 
cupy others; that it would make the congress change its place 
of sitting ; but, unless the states divided, I have no idea that such 
a war would finally succeed ; and it appears to me that the fall of 
Napoleon, especially coupled with what will be deemed the ruin- 
ous language of the Times newspaper, will infallibly silence the 
voice of faction in America, and will make the whole of the peo- 
ple of one mind as to the necessity of providing for resistance. 



148 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

The Times seems to suppose that the people of America, or, at 
least, a part of them, and especially in the eastern states, will 
heartily participate in our joy at the fall of Napoleon and the re- 
storation of the Bourbons. Will they not, on the contrary, be ter- 
ribly alarmed ? And will not those who have cried out against 
the government for aiding Napoleon, as they called it, begin to 
fear the consequences of his fall, when the project of the Times 
reaches their ears, and when they find that there are writers in 
England who already openlv propose to make war upon them for 
the express purpose if subverting tkeir government, and effecting 
in America what has been effected in France, namely, a restora- 
tion.'' Mr. Ames is complimented by this writer as the Burke of 
America, and I dare say that Mr. Ames would have liked very well 
to get a pension of three thousand pounds a year; but in that re- 
spect he was not so lucky as his great prototype. Mr. Ames 
was a poor drivelling bankerer after aristocracy. His party wished 
to establish a sort of petty noblesse : they wanted to make some ho- 
norary distinction. The people took the alarm ; put them out of 
power, and they have ever since been endeavouring to tear out the 
vitals of their country. The fall of Napoleon, however, will leave 
them wholly without support from the people, when that people 
hears that the first consequence of that fall is a proposition in the 
English public prints to treat THEIR government as that of 
Rapoleon has been treated, and upon precisely the same principle, 
namely, that it is a despotism. As I said before, I trust that our 
government is too wise to be led to the adoption of any such pro- 
ject; but if ihey were, what could our friends in America say ? 
They have been asserting for years past, that oars was the cause 
of freedom against a despot. What will they say if we make war 
upon them upon the same principle, and for the same end, that we 
have been making war against Napoleon? By Mr. Jefferson and 
his party it was always concluded that there was no danger to be 
apprehended from France under any circumstances; and that if 
France, if the new order of things was subdued in France, Ame- 
rica would be in great danger. Therefore, Ihey always wished, 
and they acted as if ihey wished, that France should not be defeat- 
ed in the result of the war. It is in our power, by making peace 
with them at once, and waiving all dispute .about differences that 
cannot arise during peace, lo show them that their fears were 
groundless; but will they not, when they see the project of the 
Times newspaper, hold it up to the teeth of their political adver- 
saries, and say, " look here /" Here is the first fruits of the fall of 
the man whose destruction you told us we ought to assist in pro- 
ducing, and to do any thing, " in the upholding of whom, you re- 
presented as impolitic and base." This will be the language to 
those adversaries who will hang their heads with shame, unless the 
author of the Times can make a shift, somehow or other, to con- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 1 49 

vey to them a small portion of his impudence. I think it is clear, 
then, that the people of Anerica would, in case such a war were 
to be made upon them, be united in a spirit of resistance ; and if 
they were, I have no idea that ten such armies as all that we could 
send, well disciplined and brave as our army is, would finally suc- 
ceed in subduing and recolonizing the country. We might make 
inroads from Canada; we might demolish towns upon the coast; 
we might destroy manufactories ; we might lay waste the cornfields, 
and burn many of the mills; we might destroy all the shipping; 
we might tear the country a good deal to pieces ; but I do not be- 
lieve that we should, even by adding another eight hundred mil- 
lions to our debt, secure one single colony in the territory now 
called the United 'States of America. Yet, it is really true, 
that the enemies \)f freedom, while America remains what she now 
is, have gained nothing Napoleon has been put down ; but then 
he was an enemy of freedom. He was not owned by any friend 
of freedom. France was not a republic, nor had she a representa- 
tive government under him. The war against him was in the 
name, at least, of the people. The example so hateful to the ene- 
mas of liberty, of a people happy and free, without distinction of 
ranks, without an established church, without hereditary power or 
privilege of any sort, with a press now perfectly free, with legisla- 
tors and chief magistrates periodically elected by the peopleat 
large ; this example still exists, and the country is yet open to all the 
world ; and to put down this example would, I am of opinion, cost 
us more blood and more money than it has cost to put down Na- 
poleon. The enemies of freedom promised us peace durable, if 
we got rid of Napoleon; but scarcely is he down, when they pro- 
pose to us a new war, more, if possible, expensive in its nature, 
and probably longer in its duration. To be sure, America holds out 
an alluring bait ; it presents employment for governors of provinces, 
commanders, postmasters, attorneys and solicitors general, secreta- 
ries, counsellors of state, taxing people, paymasters, judges, and 
a long and nameless list of hanger3-on ; but, again I say, I hope 
and trust that the Prince Regent and his ministers will have too 
much wisdom to listen to any such mad and wicked project. It 
is impossible, however, for the people of America not to feel some 
alarm, and not to make preparations accordingly. This language 
of our newspapers is quite enough to excite apprehensions ; and 
for this, amongst the rest, we have to curse a base and degenerate 
press* 



I 



150 betters of William Cobbdt, Esq. 



AMERICA. 



An article which appeared in the Times newspaper of Monday 
last, makes me regret exceedingly that the Regent did not answer 
that part of the city address which expresses a hope that " a 
period is put to the ravages of war ; and that we may henceforth 
participate in the advantages of a friendly and uninterrupted 
intercourse with all the nations of the worlds I regret that his 
Royal Highness did not speak to and echo this sentiment, because 
the article above alluded to states, that there is to be a stipulation 
in the definitive treaty of peace, by which all the allied powers, and 
France, are to bind themselves not to interfere 4n the war which 
England may carry on against the United States of America. 
This article is published as dated, and as having been pub- 
lished, at Vienna. It is, doubtless, wholly false, though it is very 
difficult to account for its being published in the capital of the 
Austrian government, where intelligence of this sort seems so un- 
likely to be fabricated. Perhaps the Times newspaper, which 
has cried out so loudly for no peace with James Madison, and 
has openly proposed to detach part of the states from the con- 
federation, has fabricated the article itself, by way of feeling the 
public pulse. Be this as it may, the idea exists, and the promul- 
gation of it must have a very bad effect; for though it is impos- 
sible to believe that the Prince Regent would propose any such 
stipulation, there can be no doubt but the very mention of it in 
our prints will tend to make the Americans more exasperated than 
they were before. 

The effect of this mischievous article would have been, by 
anticipation, completely destroyed by a single word from the Re- 
gent echoing the wish for universal peace expressed by the city 
of London. I am aware that his Royal Highness, by a speedy 
adjustment of all differences with America, which, indeed, do 
themselves away by the existence of peace in Europe, will greatly 
disappoint the feeders on war and the enemies of freedom. Aa 
to the former, they might be satisfied with profits equal to the 
profi(s of war; but the latter, nothing short of the extermination 
of the very name of republic will satisfy. They see, in the exist- 
ence of the republic of America, danger little short of what they 
saw in the republic of France. They see in it a receptacle for 
the oppressed and enterprising of all nations. They see in it an 
example of freedom, morality, and happiness, the bare thought of 
which puts them to the torture. If they could consolidate all the 
people of America into one carcass, they would, having an arm 
sufficiently strong, and an arm sufficiently long, cut their throat 
at a single gash. Such men, if men we ®u$ht to call guch men- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 151 

sters, talk with delight of the sending of Lord Wellington's 
army to the United States ; they revel in the idea of burning the 
cities and towns, the mills and manufactories of that country ; at 
the very least, they talk of forcing Mr. Madison from his seat, 
and new-modelling the government. They endeavour to excite 
all the hostile passions here. They are always ripping up oup 
defeated and captured frigates, without appearing to recollect 
that we, at any rate, defeated and took one frigate from the Ame- 
ricans. Why then urge us on to revenge? Can any revenge that 
we can take do away these pages of history, any more than the 
dethronement of Napoleon can do away the history of the battles 
of Austerlitz, Jena, and Eylau ? At other times they tell us of 
the danger which, as manufacturers, we have to apprehend from 
America, who is now, in her turn, becoming an exporter of woollen 
and of cotton goods. And why should they not export woollens 
and cottons as well as we ? What reason is there that they should 
not become a commercial nation as well as we or the Dutch I 
These latter used to have, exclusively, the making of Gods for 
the Portuguese and Spaniards ; but, for my part, I see no harm 
that would arise from it, if the Americans, who have such abun- 
dance of wood, were to supply this article to all the catholic coun- 
tries of Europe, as doubtless there will now be a great call for it, 
seeing that the pope (to the great joy of this protestant country) 
is now restored to his See. 

But in spite of the justice and reasonableness of these senti- 
ments, they do not, and will not, prevail amongst the manufacturers 
in England, who will look with jealousy and hatred towards Ame- 
rica; and perceiving no other way of arresting her astonishing 
progress in the manufacturing line than that of tearing her to pieces 
by war, they will be for war with her at any expense and at any 
risk. The ship owners know well that they have no chance in a 
fair competition with the Americans. They know that the latter 
can build, sail, and carry at half the price necessary to English 
ships. This class, therefore, will be for war. The mercantile 
marine will breed ships of war. This is an object of terror with 
those who look far forward, and who are unable to support the 
idea of England ever, at any time, becoming the second maritime 
Ration in the world, as in twenty years' time she must, unless the 
growth of the American naval power can be checked. When we 
look back to what America was in the year 1784, that is, thirty 
years ago, and see what progress she has made, and how that 
progress has gone on increasing in its velocity, it is impossible 
not to perceive, that unless she receive some very severe check, 
she must be equal, at least, to England, in naval power, even in 
the course of ten years. This opinion is general with those who 
reflect upon the subject ; and, therefore, it is not astonishing thai 
some, even good men, who d» not hate freedom, in the abstract, 



152 Letters of William Cobbeti, Esq. 

should be anxious to see her growth checked, either by demolish* 
ing her towns, her ships, her means of strength of all sorts, or by 
dividing her states. There are those, too, who, looking at the 
feaifu) magnitude of our debt, and in despair of seeing it reduced 
by any system of economy, have an idea that it would be as well 
to venture upon a war of conquest with America, in order to obtain 
the means to pay off part at least of this debt. They tee in that 
boundless country lands to sell, and a great population to tax. 
The} imagine they will find means as boundless as the debt itself; 
and mad as the notion of a war upon such grounds may seem to 
the Americans, tbey may be assured tbat there are numerous 
persons in England who entertain it. Then think of the delightful 
prospect which seventeen or eighteen provinces hold out to the 
hunters after places ! Such cargoes of governors, commanders in 
chief, staffs, port-admirals and officers, custom house and excise 
people, attorneys and solicitors general, judges, doctors, proctors, 
paymasters, commissaries, and though last, not least, bishops, 
priests, and deacons. Only think of this, and wonder not that 
there are persons who wish lor the recolonization of America. 

But as the subjects of dispute with that country cease of them- 
selves with the war in Europe, let us hope that all these wild 
noiions will be soon dissipated by the Regent's ministers, who will, 
doubtless, lose, now, not a moment in giving real peace to the 
nation. I must confess, however, that I should like to see the 
ugly paragraph to which I have alluded plainly contradicted by 
something like official authority. It appeared in the Times 
newspaper of the 'id of May in the following words : The treaty 
of 'Chaumont is published in the same print of the same day, from 
the Vienna Gazette; and after the treaty there follows, as also 
taken from the Vienna paper, this paragraph : 

" It is affirmed, that beside the conventions which England has 
concluded with the other allied powers, it has also made a secret 
agreement relative to JSorlh America. By this agreement Eng- 
land has procured from all the other European powers the assu- 
rance, that after the re-establishment of peace in Europe, none of 
them will interfere hi the disputes between his Britannic Majesty 
and Norili America, and France is also to engage, in the peace 
to be concluded, to subscribe to the same conditions." 

This, as the reader will observe well, was first published at Vi- 
enna on the 9ih of April, and accompanied the publication of the 
treaty of Chaumont. If the paragraph be not a fabrication here, 
it is very strange indeed, it betag*weH known, that at Vienna the 
press is under a rigid inspection and control. Why any such 
stipulation as this ? What need was there of any, seeing that we 
have now no dispute with America, the very subjects of dispute 
having ceased to exist with the war in Europe. The dispute re- 
lated to the taking of people out of American ships upon the high 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 153 

Seas, upou the ground of being English subjects, and also to the 
extent of the right of blockade and other matters touching neu- 
trals during war. Peace with all nations, of course, takes away 
the very subject of dispute; and whv, therefore, should England 
have made a secret agreement, in order to prevent any of the other 
powers, France included, from taking part in this dispute, " after 
the re-establishment of peace in Europe ?" If I could believe, 
as I yet cannot, in the existence of such an agreement, I should 
begin to fear that the regent and his ministers were ben! upon a 
war oirecolow'sing, or at least of devastation, in the l T nited States ; 
tht.t they had listened to the suggestions or those who, for the se- 
veral reasons that I have stated, desire the destruction or the con- 
quest of these states, and that we were doomed now to be engaged 
in a most expensive and bloody war, while all the rest of Europe 
enjoyed profound peace ; that the time was not yet to arrive w;ien 
our burdens were to be lightened, when guineas were to return, 
and when we were, once before we died, to say that our country 
was living in friendship with all the world. 

If this war were to be resolved on by our government, (which 
God fo;b:u !) it must be confessed that there would not be want- 
ing the readv means of tarrying it on with deadly effect. We 
have more soldiers, more ships, more horses, more arras and am- 
munition ; more, in short, of all the instruments of war, than we 
know what to do with. Our army is well disciplined ; abundantly 
supplied wiln good officers ; brave in its nature ; accustomed to 
victory ! Our navy is in the same state. The European war has 
ended so suddenly, and was upon so large a scale, that there are 
provisions and stores on hand more than sufficient, perhaps, for a 
year's war in America. The undertaking, therefore, would be by 
no means chimerical, though, in the end, I think it would fail. If 
such a war, and for the purpose urged in our public prints, should 
be entered on, it is probable that the German legion, being sub- 
jects of our king, might be amongst the troops sent out. This is 
no contemptible army of itself ; horse, foot, artillery, engineers; 
all well appointed, provided, and commanded. In short, there 
will be no difficulty in sending out an army of fifty or eighty thou- 
sand men, beside sailors and marines. To prevent their landing 
would be impossible ; and it is hardly necessary to say, that tk$ 
whole of the ships of the states, and all the maritime towns, must 
fait upon the approach of only a fourth part of such an army ; un- 
less the Americans should, previous to its landing, be cured of 
their self-confidence, and lay by the plough for a while for the use 
of the musket. 

I trrst in the justice of his Royal Highness, the regent, for the 
rejection of such a project — but, if it were to be adopted, I know 
it would be popular; and I also see, as every man must, that the 
powers of Europe, if inclined to aid Auaenca, are unable to do iU 

20 



354 Letters of William Cobhell, Esq. 

They have, all put together, not fleets enough to face six English 
men of war. The maritime strength of the whole world now cen- 
tres in these islands. The Americans, I hear, rely upon the 
friendship of Kussia. Alas ! what have they 1o offer the empe- 
ror of Russia in return for his friendship ? litis is nonsense. 
The emperor of Russia has other objects of his attention ; and, be- 
sides, if we really were to give credit to the article from Vienna, 
that point is settled at once. So that if this war were to be re- 
solved on, it would soon be seen that the politics of the federal- 
ists, as they are called, have been wrong from the beginning ; and 
that Mr. Madison, so often accused of being the tool of Napoleon, 
will have to remind his antagonists, that if America, in good ear- 
nest, had taken the side of France a few years ago, she would not 
now, in ail probability, have to tremble lest the advice of the Times 
newspaper should be acted upon. Luckily for the power of 
England, and for the family of Bourbon, Mr. Madison and his 
party kept aloof from Napoleon for the sake of a political princi- 
ple, united wilhthe fear of being reproached with plunging their 
country info a war on the side of a despot and a conqueror. But 
it would, if the Times' project were adopted, become evident to 
all the world, that such policy had been the ruin of the United 
Slates. I repeat, however, my confident hope, that the regent 
and his ministers are too just and too moderate in their views, to 
listen for one moment to any such ambitious and sanguinary pro- 
ject, against which it is my duty to endeavour to guard them, as I 
know that there will not be wanting numbers, through the press 
and otherwise, to urge its adoption. The whole world beside 
does not, perhaps, contain so many deadly enemies of freedom as 
England alone. It is here alone where we see it recommended to 
keep the allied armies longer in France ; it is here alone where we 
hear it said, and see it promulgated, that Napoleon ought to be 
hanged with his code of laws about his neck ; it is here alone 
where we see publications recommending to the king of France to 
punish the late republicans ; it is here alone where the press 
openly expresses its dread of (he king of France being too lenient. 
This description of persons will never be at heart's ease while the 
people of America are free, and while America is a receptacle for 
the oppressed. And, indeed, upon their principle, they are right. 
If they will insist upon regarding the result of the war in Europe 
as valuable only on account of its having destroyed republicanism 
in Europe, they are perfectly consistent in urging a war against 
America, and even a war of recolonization j for unless that object 
be accomplished; unless the cradle of the revolution become also 
its grave, little or nothing has been gained over the principle of 
republicanism. America, now holding out her hand to manufac- 
turers, as well as cultivators of the soil, cannot, if she remain what 
she is } fail to attract prodigious numbers of Europeans} of all ca- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 156 

tions, to her prolific and happy shores. Discontent at the chan- 
ges which have now taken place ; despair of ever seeing that which 
they before had hopes of living to see ; shame to remain on the 
spot where their hopes have been baffled, and their endeavours 
frustrated ; insurmountable hatred of power to which they are com- 
pelled to submit, and to the support of which they are compelled 
to contribute; the weight of taxation; the spirit of enterprise; 
the hope of bettering their lot in all: these will, if America beat 
peace, and the road free and clear, carry hundreds of thousands 
of Europeans to her shores. Artisans, manufacturers of all de- 
scriptions, and especially of the most clever and most enterprising 
men. The augmentation of her population will be hastened ; her 
maritime and all other mean3 will increase ; and it will be not at 
all surprising to see her, in ten years, in a situation to send forth 
fifty ships of the line, manned and commanded aa well as our own. 
I confess that this will be the natural consequence of leaving 
her what she now is, and that in any war at ten years hence, she 
will be able almost to dictate to us both the time and the conditions 
of peace, there being a limit to our growth of power, and none to 
hers. But for all this 1 am decidedly for leaving her to herself. 
Her states may divide of themselves. That will make her com- 
paratively weak ; whereas, by a war, we should unite them much 
closer than they now are. We may, too, fail in the object of the; 
war. After expending two or three hundred millions of money, 
we may be compelled to make peace with her as an independent 
republic, having greatly weakened ourselves by the attempt to 
subdue her, tarnished our own military reputation, fixed her fame 
forever in the minds of men, and what in the eyes of some per- 
sons would be worse than all the rest, established upon a rock, 
never to be shaken, the principles of freedom and of republican 
government. 

I have thus taken a rather extensive view of this subject ; but 
to those who are for a war with America, in order, as the Times 
calls it, to finish the good work which so happily begun in 
France, it might have been sufficient to observe, in very few 
words, that our choice lies between these two things : either to 
suffer America to remain the nurse of freedom, the receptacle of 
the oppressed of all nations, an example of liberty, security, and 
happiness, enjoyed under an elective government, without heredi- 
tary rights, or established church; or to continue to pay the 
property-tax, and to see our debt yearly increased by loans. 
Here, Johnny Bull, you have your choice. Which of the two 
you may take, 1 really cannot pretend to say ; and so upon this 
subject I must wait patiently the result of your profound cogitations. 

As to the state of opinions in America, it appears that, having 
heard the low state of Napoleon's affairs, the people there were 
counting with confidence on an immediate ]?c«ce. They had not 



156 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 

then heard of the actual dethronement of Napoleon, and of tha 
consequent language of our public prints, accompanied with state- 
ments relative to troops immediately to be sent off to America. 
What effect these will produce in the minds of the people and of 
the government there, I know not; but so slowly do they gene- 
rally move, it is not probable that the troops will meet with any- 
thing like an army to oppose them. The Americans have no 
experienced officers. They have no discipline. They will, too, 
I dare say, think that, because they beat England in the last war, 
they can do it again, and much easier, having now five times as 
numerous a population. But, in the first place, tbey will not have 
to contend against such generals as they had to contend against 
before, nor such officers and soldiers. Tbey will, if our troops 
really should land in their country, have to contend with those 
who have defeated French armies; with skill of all sorts; expe- 
rience in the men as well as the officers ; with courage, discipline, 
and the habit of victory. All these will require something more 
than the Americans have yet thought of. Then, in the last war, 
America had three great maritime powers on her side, and one 
power to send her aid in officers and men. Do they now 
look for assistance from the friendship of Ferdinand, or of Louis, 
or of the sovereign prince of the Netherlands ? Which of the 
three do they intend to apply to ? Or do they expect that the 
emperor of Russia, who is shortly to come on a visit to England, 
will, in order to preserve their liberty, send an army of Cossacks; 
to their assistance round by the way of Kamschatka? 

Verily, Jonathan, if you repose in such vain hopes you are 
upon your last legs, if the project of our public writers be adopt- 
ed by the government. It appears that you have negotiators in 
Europe; and, I have heard, that they have a great opinion of their 
poiiers of speech. They, or, rather you, will, in due time, feel 
the consequence of this error, if it be persevered in long. We 
here, do not make such long speeches in our diplomatic discussions. 
We are more laconic; but we use arguments of much greater 
force than yours. Whether it be owing to our European climate* 
which, by making the stage of maturity more tardy in arriving, 
communicates more vigour to the mind as well as the body, from 
causes similar to those which render the oak more solid and dura- 
ble than the poplar; or. to that necessity of industry which habitu- 
ates us to despatch, I cannot tell : but, certain it is, that our nego- 
tiators have a much shorter way of going to work than yours, and 
that they seldom fail to be much more successful. You have re- 
cently seen what a shillyshally state the powers of the continent 
were in till our Lord Castlereagh got amongst their counsellors. 
They were talking about leaving to the Emperor Napoleon a 
much greater extent of territory than France, under her kings, 
ever knew* You have seen how soon matters .changed after the 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 15? 

arrival of his lordship. You have seen the result; and, having 
seen that, rely, if you will, on the superior powers of talking pos- 
sessed by your negotiators ! Perhaps you may take it into 
your head that negotiators, to be chosen from amongst OUR 
FRIENDS, THE FEDERALISTS ; that two or three of those 
" Burkes of the Western Hemisphere," of whom the Times 
newspaper speaks; perhaps, it may come into your noddle, that 
negotiators picked out from amongst these friends of "social or- 
der and regular government," will be likely to succeed better than 
those who were not for open war against Napoleon. Try, then, 
Jonathan ; and be sure to fix upon gentlemen who think them- 
selves very clever, and love, of all things, to hear themselves talk. 
Be sure to send men deeply read in Vattel and Puffendorf, and 
who will write volumes in folio in answer to six lines from our se« 
cretary of state. I think that, in order to conciliate, your best 
way will be to send negotiators, who, in following up the senti- 
ments of Mr. Randolph, will lay all the blame of your hostility 
upon the democrats, or jacobins, who have emigrated to you from 
England and Ireland; and if you were to propose to Live them 
up to their natural sovereign, it might, perhaps, as Mr. Randolph 
would think, obtain you peace upon better terms. Try it, Jona- 
than, and see what effect it will have ! In short, try, in all man- 
ner of ways, the powers of talking Alas! to be serious 

with you, your safety lies now in the forbearance, the magnanimi- 
ty, the compassion of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent of 
England ; and, I trust, especially for the sake of the quakers in 
Pennsylvania, that you will find this a safe reliance. While the 
Emperor Napoleon wielded the arms of France, you thought your- 
selves in no danger. But him you did not like. He did not dress 
to your fancy. One party amongst you abused him, and the 
other disclaimed all desire to aid his views. Volumes did your 
negotiators write to convince us that you did nothing to favour 
him. You got into a nice, snug little war of your own. Still 
independent, you were at war with one of the great belligerents, 
and so far from allying yourself with the other, you contrived to 
keep up your quarrel with him, and could hardly be said to be at 
peace with your powerful enemy's only powerful enemy. Lucki- 
ly for us, you adopted this policy, and persevered in it to the last. 
You appear to have put your little independent war as a sort of 
episode into the grand drama ; but it was acting contrary to all the 
rules of composition not to close the episode before the end of the 
piece. You may, 1 hope, safely rely upon the moderation and 
magnanimity of our Prince Regent, acting in the name and in behalf 
of his majesty ; but I do assure you, that that is your only reliance; 
for if you were rooted out to the last man, your fate would excite 
very little commiseration in Europe. You thought that you 
would hold the balance between England and France. What fol- 



I5S Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

ly and presumption ! But it is vain to talk. This is a disease of 
the mind, of which nations are never cured but at the cannon's 
mouth ; and though I could wish much to see you cured, I can- 
not bring myself to approve of the application of the remedy. 
Since writing the above, the following important declaration from 
our admiralty has come to hand. The Americans will, 1 dare say, 
not think it altogether a joke. 

" Admiralty Office, April 30, 1814. 
"The lords commissioners of the admiralty cannot announce 
to the fleet the termination of hostilities with France, without 
expressing to the petty officers, seamen, and royal marines of 
his majesty's ships, the high sense which their lordships enter- 
tain of their gallant and glorious services during the late war. 
The patience, perseverance, and discipline ; the skill, courage, 
and devotion, with which the seamen and marines have upheld 
the best interests, and achieved the noblest triumphs of the coun- 
try, entitle them to the gratitude, not only of their native land, 
which they have preserved inviolate, but of the other nations of 
Europe, of whose ultimate deliverance their successes maintain- 
ed the hope, and accelerated the accomplishment. Their lord- 
ships regret that the unjust and unprovoked aggression of the 
American government, in declaring war upon this country, after 
all the causes of its original complaint had been removed, does 
not permit them to reduce the fleet at once to a peace establish- 
ment; but as the question now at issue in this war is the mainte- 
nance of those maritime rights which are the sure foundations of 
our naval glory, their lordships look with confidence to that part 
of the fleet which it may be still necessary to keep in commission, 
for a continuance of that spirit of discipline and gallantry which 
has raised the British navy to its present pre-eminence. In re- 
ducing the fleet to the establishment necessary for the American 
war, the seamen and marines will find their lordships attentive to 
the claims of their respective services. The reduction will be 
first made in the crews of those ships which it may be found ex- 
pedient to pay off, and from them the petty officers and seamen 
wiii be successively discharged, according to the length of their 
services ; beginning in the first instance with all those who were 
in his majesty's service previous to the 7th of March, 1803, and 
have since continued in it. When the reduction shall have been 
thus made, as to the ships paid off, their lordships will direct 
their attention to those which it may be found necessary to keep 
in commission, and as soon as the circumstances of the war will ad- 
mit, will bring home and discharge all persons having the same 
standing and periods of service, as those before discharged from 
the ships paid off; so that, in a few months the situation of indi- 
viduals will be equalised ; all men of a certain period of service 
wiB be at liberty to return home to their families ; and the number 






Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 159 

which it may be still necessary to retain, will be composed of those 
who have been the shortest time in the service. An arrangement 
in itself so just cannot, in their lordship's opinion, fail to give uni- 
versal satisfaction ; and they are induced to make this communi- 
cation to the fleet, because they think that the exemplary good 
conduct of all the petty officers, seamen, and marines, entitle them 
to every confidence, and to this full and candid explanation of 
their lordship's intentions. Their lordships cannot conclude 
without expressing their hope, that the valour of his majesty's fleets 
and armies will speedily bring the American contest to a conclu- 
sion honourable to the British interests, and conducive to the last- 
ing repose of the civilised world. By command of their lord- 
ships. J. W. CROKER." 

Thus, then, we have it explicitly declared, that there is to be 
"an American war." Now, we shall see then, whether our 
ministers are to be talked out of their views, whatever those views 
may be. The grounds of the war, on the part of America, were 
the invasion, as they insisted, of their neutral rights. The peace 
in Europe, I should have thought, put an end to the dispute, it be- 
ing impossible that neutral rights should any longer be claimed, 
But it seems that I was deceived ; I must confess that the cry 
for war with America is general in this country, now that we have 
no other powers to fight with, and the resentment of no one to fear. 
From America we learn the most surprising fact, that a law has ac- 
tually been passed to prevent the importation of either woollen or 
cotton goods from any part of the world I Thus are eight millions 
of people, who only foui teen^years ago had not a coat or a gown 
that was not carried from England, able to supply themselves ; 
and must, of course be, in a short time, able to export those com- 
modities, and at a much cheaper rate than we possibly can. Even 
ten years ago, America did no! grow a tenth part of the wool suf- 
ficient for making her woollens. What a wonderful increase of 
means ! To what must such a country arrive in another ten years, 
if left as she is! But my fear is, that even here will be found, 
fey some persons, a cause to make tliem wish for war. 



AMERICAN WAR. 

It appears from recent official accounts, that the Americans are 
in a fair way of becoming masters of Upper Canada, in spite of 
all the skill and all the valour which our little army has opposed to 
them. But the military events of the war are trifling, compared 
with a transaction just announced to us through the channel of the 
newspapers. We are told that the American general (Dearborn) 



160 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

has committed to close custody twetitj seven British subjects, ia 
order to retaliate upon them in these erest manner, in case we, o« 
our side, should punish naturalis d citizens of America, when 
taken in arms by us. The article containing this intelligence, I 
copy, as follows, from the Courier newspaper of the 31st of July 
last. 

" New- York papers to the 30th ultimo have been received in 
Dublin, and one of the Dublin papers, in announcing their arrival, 
says, ' Their contents are extremely important, but they are too 
voluminous for insertion in this day's publication. If appears that 
general Dearborn had carried into immediate effect the orders of 
the secretary of war, under that act which empowered the presi- 
dent to have recourse to a system of retaliation, in case the natu- 
ralised citizens of America should be subjected, when made 
prisoners, to the laws of a state which had exiled them, or which 
they had voluntarily abandoned forever. General Dearborn had 
committed, in pursuance of those orders, twenty-seven British sub- 
jects to close custody, on whom it was provisionally determined to 
inflict the severest retaliation ! Those papers likewise contain the 
official account of the capture of Fort George. They also com- 
municate some official intelligence respecting the attack made on 
the American army, on the 6th of June, by General Vincent. 
They say that the American advanced guard had been surprised, 
and that after a severe conflict, during which their artillery had 
been taken and re-taken several times, they retired to the main 
body at Fort George.' Important, indeed, are their contents, if 
the orders of the American secretary of war have been carried into 
effect in the manner they are said to have been. The American 
government here avow their determination to abide no longer by 
the public law of nations, and claim the power of dissolving the 
allegiance which a subject owes to the government of his native 
country. By the chicane of naturalizing our countrymen, Mr. 
Madison converts them at once into American citizens, over whom, 
it seems, we have no longer any rights, nor they any duties to- 
wards us. They may take up arms against us, and if we make 
them prisoners we are to inflict no punishment on them ! They 
Lave aimed a blow — they have attempted the life of their mother 
country, and the parricides are to have perfect impunity ! A more 
impudent, monstrous, unnatural principle, never was attempted to 
be set up. But does Mr. Madison think we shall submit to it? 
We said last Saturday, and repeat it to-day, that ' if Mr. Madison 
dare to retaliate by taking away the life of one English prisoner, 
in revenge for a British subject, fully proved to be such, being 
taken in the act of voluntarily bearing arms against this country, 
America puts herself out of the protection of the law of nations, 
and must be treated as an outlaw.' An army and navy acting 
agaiast her, will tbec be absolved from all obligation to respect 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 161 

ilie usages and laws of war. Hostilities may be carried on against 
her in any mode, until she is brought to a better sense of her con- 
duct, and, by returning to the observance of the laws of nations, 
puts herself again within their protection. This is no time for half 
measures; and the question is not whether we shall revenge the 
excesses of sudden passion upon our enemy, but whether we 
shall support public law against a systematic attempt to steal 
away our countrymen, and to arm them against us." 

This subject is one of very deep interest to both countries; 
and it ought to be treated with the greatest caution and candour. 
Let us, upon an occasion so interesting to humanity, endeavour to 
banish from our breasts all those passions which are hostile to 
truth and justice. This is an endeavour, which, at any rate, I am 
resolved to make. Holding in abhorrence the traitor to his coun- 
try on the one hand, and equally so every attempt to overstrain 
the severe law of treason on the other hand, I will not imitate this 
hireling scribe, in using language calculated to produce unassuage- 
ab!e irritation on both sides, and eventually the shedding of much 
innocent blood. I know very well that the law of nations; that is 
to say, the general usage of nations, and the principles laid down 
by those who have written on the subject, fully sanction the opi- 
nion, that allegiance is unalienable; that is to say, thai every man 
continues, to the day of his death, a subject of the state wherein 
he was born ; and that, of course, any act of his, in open hostility, 
and especially of arms-bearing against his native state, if it be a 
[Voluntary act on his part, is an act coming under the description 
of treason. 

This doctrine, generally speaking, is founded in nature as well 
as in law ; for it appears not more unnatural for a son to raise the 
instrument of death against his motiier, than for a citizen to bear a 
sword against the state wherein he has first drawn his breath. I 
would, therefore, never consent to the recognition of any right on 
the part of Englishmen to transfer their allegiance at pleasure to 
any other state. But in the particular and singular case before 
us, there appear to me to be very powerful reasons for abstaining 
from the enforcement of the law against men born in this country, 
who may be made prisoners of war during this contest with the 
American states. These persons, it will be observed, have been 
naturalised in America, and, of course, must have resided there 
many years, because the laws of America do not permit them to 
be naturalized until after a residence of at least five years. In 
the next place, they are persons who have not had the premedi- 
tated act of treason in view ; for they cannot have gone to America 
for the purpose of entering into the American army, and to fight 
against England. Diners causes have led to their emigration 
thither. Some have gone as a sort of voluntary exiles ; they have 
banished themselves in order to avoid the punishment with which 

21 



162 Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 

the laws of (his country menace them on account of certain political 
acts, which those laws denominate crimes. Others have fled 
thilher without being accused of any crime here, in order to enjoy 
what they deemed their rights as men, not being able to enjoy 
those rights, as they thought them, in their native country. But 
the great mass of emigrants from the British islands to the Ame- 
rican states have encountered all the inconveniences of a change 
of country, as well as all the well-known dangers of the seas, for 
the sole purpose of making their lot in this world better than it 
was before. This has been the motive of almost the whole of the 
emigrants from every country in Europe to the American states; 
a motive wholly foreign from that of committing treason or any act 
of hostility to their native country. 

The situation, therefore, of all these emigrants, is very different 
indeed from that of a man who, for the express purpose, should go 
abroad and take up arms against his country. Many and many 
instances are upon record, however, of very famous men having 
done even this, without being accounted traitors. A very memo- 
rable one may be cited in prince Eugene, the companion of the 
duke of Marlborough in his wars against France. Prince Eugene 
was a subject of the king of France, and, it is related, too, that he 
entered into the service of Austria in revenge for some affront or 
neglect that he had experienced from his sovereign : yet I have 
never heard that prince Eugene was considered as a traitor. It 
is very notorious, that in all the European armies there are men of 
all the states upon the continent ; that the army of Prussia, in 
particular, was made up of men of all nations. Our army, at this 
time, has in it Germans, Dutchmen, Italians, and Frenchmen. 
But do we consider these men as traitors to the several countries 
in which they were born 1 Yet, be it observed, that they are not 
persons who are naturalized in England ; and it is very well 
known that they did not come to our country for the purpose of 
carrying on trade, or of cultivating the lands ; but, generally, for the 
purpose of entering into our military service, at the very time that 
we are engaged in a war against those who exercised the sove- 
reignty in their respective states. In such a situation of things, 
it appears to me that we, above all the nations that I know any 
thing of, ought to be cautious (and I trust our government will be 
very cautious) in rigidly enforcing the law of treason, on the ground 
of unalienable allegiance. 

There is no way of judging safer than that of making the case 
of an adversary our own. Let us suppose, then, that during the 
war in the north of Europe, in which the king of Westphalia is an 
ally of the emperor Napoleon ; let us suppose that a corps of the 
German legion, who are principally Hanoverians, and whom, I 
am extremely happy to hear, have been shipped off to be em- 
ployed in that war; let us suppose that a corps of this celebrated 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 1G3 

legion were to be made prisoners in a battle against the king of 
Westphalia ; will the reader say that the king of Westphalia, 
though now the sovereign of Hanover, would do right in consider- 
ing these persons as traitors, and subjecting them to the punish- 
ment which our laws provide for traitors ; namely, that of being 
hanged for some time, cut down before they are dead, having 
their heads chopped off, and their bodies cut each into four 
quarters, to be placed at the disposal of the king ? Will the reader 
say that the king of Westphalia would do right if he acted thus 
towards a corps of the German legion ? It will be said, I know, 
that the king of Westphalia is a usurper, and that the persons in 
the German legion owe him no allegiance. Let us see a little, 
however, how this matter stands. The king of Westphalia does 
not claim the sovereignty of Hanover in virtue of any right of 
hereditary succession ; but he claims it in right of conquest ; a 
right upon which we claim the sovereignty over the thirty millions 
of people who are said to inhabit the kingdom of Java. 

it is very easy for us to call Jerome, Joachim, and even Na- 
poleon himself, usurpers. We do this in the heat of our animosity 
against them ; but as we are here talking of an appeal to the lew of 
nations, we should consider that that law makes the right of con- 
quest, as applicable to the duty of allegiance, perfectly equal with 
the risht of hereditarv succession. It is indeed notorious, that 
from the moment any portion of territory is conquered, it imme- 
diately becomes subject to the will of the conqueror, and that all 
the people belonging to it owe him allegiance, the sovereignty 
of the territory being transferred, to all intents and purposes, along 
with the territory itself. Upon this ground it is that we, when we 
make a conquest of any island or province, issue proclamations, 
reminding the people that they now owe allegiance to our king; 
we command them, in his name, to obey all edicts which our ge- 
nerals may choose to put forth ; and in case of conspiring with the 
enemy, or taking up arms against us, we threaten them with the 
punishment due to traitors. To say that Jerome is a usurper in 
Hanover, may be very well in the way of talk ; but when Mr. 
| Peltier said the same thing of Buonaparte, Lord Ellenborough, on a 
trial of the former for a libel against the latter, observed to the 
jury, that Buonaparte was the sovereign of France in fact, and 
that with the question of how he became so, we had nothing to do. 
This is also the language of the law of nations. Cromwell, for in- 
stance, was a usurper in England ; but he was in fact at the 
head of the sovereignty of England ; and any Englishman found 
in a foreign army, fighting against an English army at that time, 
would doubtless have been taken to be a traitor. It may perhaps 
be said, that though Jerome be actually in possession of the sove- 
reignty of Hanover, he was not the conqueror of it, and that the 
territory has never been ceded tojiim by its former sovereign. It 



16"i Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

may be further said, that we have never made peace since that 
conquest took place, and that a struggle is still going on for the 
possession of that country. Whence it may be concluded, per- 
haps, that he is deficient in that sort of right of sovereignty which 
woulo justify him in considering the soldiers oJ the German legion 
as traitors. But, unfortunately tor this argument, our own con- 
duct upon a recent occasion gives to it a complete answer. The 
king of Sweden did not conquer the island of Guadaloupe. It 
was conquered by us ; we have given it to (he king of Sweden, 
while a war is yet going on between us and France for the pos- 
session ot that island, amongst other objects. Will any one say 
that the people of Guadaloupe do not owe allegiance to the king 
of Sweden. ? I believe that no one will attempt to say this ; and 
then I should be glad to hear how any one will make out a clear 
and satisfactory distinction between the case of the natives of Gua- 
daloupe and the natives of Hanover. 

There are some persons, perhaps, who may think that the latter 
do not stand in the same predicament as the former, because they 
were out of Hanover before Jerome was made sovereign of it. I 
am not quite certain as to the fact ; but if it were so, it would not, 
it seems to me, make any alteration in the case ; for if a number 
of the natives of Guadaloupe were to be found in arms in an ex- 
pedition against that island they would, of course, be considered 
as traitors against the Swedish government, though absent from 
the said island at the time of its conquest by us. This is, indeed, 
an absolutely necessary consequence of the doctrine of unaliena- 
ble allegiance ; for how can allegiance be unalienable, unless it 
travels downwards with the actual sovereignty ; unless it descends 
to the successors in the sovereignty, be those successors whom 
they may ? Allegiance can in no other way be unalienable ; for 
the sovereign may die ; his family may become extinct ; the laws 
may introduce a new race of sovereigns. Numerous are the in- 
stances of this sort ; how, then, can we pretend that allegiance is 
unalienable, unless we maintain that it is inseparable from the ac- 
tual sovereignty of the soil ? 

These observations, which, in this comparative view of the 
matter, might be carried much further, are quite sufficient, I think, 
to make every reasonable man hesitate before he joins with the 
editor of the Courier in asserting, that if America attempts retalia- 
tion in the way above mentioned, an army and navy acting against 
her will be absolved from all obligations to respect the usages 
and laws of war. Such a man will, at any rate, see the danger 
of all attempts to justify the hasty shedding of blood on either 
side. I have before alluded to the peculiarity of this case. Wri- 
ters upon the law of nations have never had before their eyes the 
spectacle of a country serving as a place of refuge for the distress- 
ed of all the ether nations in the world. If the states of America 



. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 165 

bad been before them, there might have been found some modifi- 
cations in their doctrine of allegiance. The states of America 
were colonies of England: the people speak the same language; 
great numbers of them are closely connected by blood. The 
quarrel, in its indigested state, appears to the mind of the mass of 
people in both countries as a sort of family quarrel. A mechanic, 
or labourer, born in England, and finding himself in America, has 
entered into no reflections as to any transfer of allegiance. He 
takes part with the country in which he is, with no thought about 
committing treason any more than the inhabitants of the villages 
of Boiley and Bishop's Waltham think about treason in their bat- 
tles about roads. It is very different, indeed, where Englishmen 
join Frenchmen, or Frenchmen join Englishmen, against their na- 
tive countries respectively. 

The editor of the Courier speaks of British subjects in the 
American army as having attejnpted to tdke the life of their wo- 
iher country, and calls them " parricides !" He does not consider 
that the far greater part of these soldiers might have been mere 
children when they left this country. I have seen hundreds of 
children (I might say thousands) land in America with their emi- 
grant parents; and if either of these were to be found in arms in 
the American army, fighting against us, would he have him hanged, 
his quivering bowels torn out, his head chopped off, and body 
hacked in quarters, for the offence ? Unjust and merciless as hire- 
ling scribes generally are, I hardly suppose that the man will go 
this length. Yet this length he must go, if, in the present case, 
he justifies our acting upon the abstract doctrine of unalienable 
allegiance. It should be considered that our own laws make 
exceptions as to allegiance. An American may become a British 
subject by marrying an English woman. From the time he so 
marries, the law gives him the claim to all the rights enjoyed by 
Englishmen ; and the same law imposes upon him all the duties of 
an Englishman. This law, of which no gentleman can be ignorant, 
has been not long ago acted upon by our government, as I under- 
stand, in this way : An American was impressed in our fleet ; he 
was claimed by the agent of the American government, as an 
American, and his discharge demanded accordingly. The answer 
was, that he was a .British subject, having married an English 
woman ; and the demand of his discharge was refused accordingly. 
The law, I believe, is, in this respect, the same in America ; and, 
indeed, those who have been acquainted with the American women, 
will, I imagine, see no reason why this species of petticoat natural- 
ization should not be going on there as well a3 here. Indeed, the 
law is the same in France as to this matter ; upon the principle, I 
suppose, that, as all good husbands suffer themselves to be ruled 
by their wives, and as the women are, for the far greater part, most 
loyal subjects, and most immovably attached to the existing order 



166 Letters of William Cbbbett, Esq. 

of things, be it what it may, a foreigner, when he marries a native, 
may be fairly looked upon as having become bone of the bone and 
flesh of the flesh of the government itself. 

Whatever be the reason ot* this amusing exception to the gene- 
ral doctrine, it is very certain that it gives a furious blow to the 
doctrine itself; for here we see, that we ourselves contend 
that allegiance is, in this case, alienable; and how are our 
generals in Canada to tell whether the British subjects, of whom 
they make prisoners, have or have not married American wo- 
men? So that, before we rush on hastily to the conclusion 
which this impudent scribe would have us adopt; before we 
give our assent to the hanging and cutting up carcasses, upon 
the ground of the doctrine of unalienable allegiance ; before 
we give our unqualified approbation to the sentiment that America 
is become an outlaw, and that ropes and ripping knives, and axes 
and gibbets, ought to make part of our weapons in a war against her ; 
before we suffer ourselves to be thus steeped in the blood which 
this man seems so anxious to see shed, you see, reader, there are 
good reasons for us to hesitate and reflect. This savage m?.n, 
who really seems to have dipped his pen in blood, has, in all hu- 
man probability, never heard of that law of our own, which sub- 
joins the rights and duties of allegiance to the act of marrying a 
native woman; and, perhaps, if he had, he would not have cared 
much about the hanging and quartering of native Americans, 
married to English women, and taken in arms in either service ; 
for you will observe, reader, that the comfort of such a man's situ- 
ation is, that he is a traitor, if found in arms on either side. If we 
catch him fighting against us, we hang him and cut him up, because 
he is the king's subject, from having married an English woman. 
If the Americans catch him fighting against them, they put 
him to death, (for I believe they stop here,) because he is a 
native of America. So that, at this rate, he who marries a 
foreigner must take good care that he go not to the wars. This 
hanging and quartering editor would, to all appearance, care but 
little about the fate of Americans who should fall in this way ; 
but I beg leave to remind him, that there are some British sub- 
jects who have had the indiscretion to marry American women. 
Aye, and what is more, some of these are officers, and of no mean 
rank and estimation, in our navy and army ! At this moment a 
great number does not occur to me ; but there are Admiral 
Knight, Sir Alexander Cochrane, and Sir Thomas Hardy, who, 
unfortunately (according to this man's notion) for them, have mar- 
ried American women. To be sure, one may rather pity than 
blame them ; for to go to America without a wife, and come away 
unmarried, argues that a man is not made of flesh and blood. Now 
will the reader say, that if either of these gallant officers, io whom, 
if I had time for inquiry and recollection, I could, I doubt not. 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. _ 167 

add a couple of score ; will the reader say that if either of them 
were made prisoner by the Americans, these latter would have a 
right to consider him as a traitor ? 

Yet if this doctrine of unalienable allegiance, as applied to the 
American soldiers, is to be received uithout any modification, 
why should not these officers, in such case, be considered as 
traitors, and treated as such ? Again, as to children, is there not 
another great exception to this law of unalienable allegiance I A 
son, born in a foreign country, of English parents is an English 
subject* And I beg the reader to observe that the rights and the 
duties of allegiance are inseparable. Such a son, though born in 
America, according to this doctrine of unalienable allegiance, is 
liable to be hanged and cut to pieces if found in the army of his 
native country fighting against us. And on the other hand, if 
found in our army fighting against America, is liable to be hanged 
as a traitor to her. How many hundreds, how many thousands, 
how many hundreds of thousands, of men and boys are in this pre- 
cise predicament ! I could name hundreds that I myself personal- 
ly know, nay, (and surely it is enough to make me speak feeling- 
ly !) the very youth who, from my dictation, is putting this iden- 
tical article upon the paper, would, if he were made prisoner, in 
fighting against the Americans, be liable to be considered a traitor 
to the country in which he was born, and to expiate his crime on 
the gibbet. 

Verily, then, we shall do well to pause and reflect before we 
give into these savage and bloody notions, the offspring, not of 
patriotic feelings, not of zeal for the honour of the country ; but 
of low, base, disappointed malice, coupLed with a hatred of every 
human being that is in the pursuit or enjoyment of freedom. I do 
not know what is the real state of the facts ; I do not know what 
number of naturalized American citizens, natives of this country, 

* There is a curious distinction made by our law with regard to the children, 
born abroad, the parents being subjects of the king. It relates to the capability of 
holding places of profit or trust, or of pensions under the crown. If the parents be 
either Scotch or Irish ; or if either father or mother be Scotrh or Irish, none of 
their children can ever, according to law, hold any such place or pension ; but if the 
parents be English, then the children may hold such places or pensions. 1 have 
often thought of availing myself of this law, and of going and routing out of their 
places and pensions all the Scotch and Irish coming under this description, of which 
I will engage there are many scores. The truth is, however, that there are foreign- 
ers, real aiiens, who enjoy such situations, and while this is the case, it would be 
hard to drive out the children of Scotch and Irish parents, though they happen to 
have been born out of the realm. It would be curious to know why this distinction 
■was made by the law; and I should not be at all surprised if it was the work of some 
person in power at the time, who happened to have relations so situated as to be 
likely to derive benefit from it- However, such is the law. That I know very 
■well; and I do not promise that I will not one of these days, when I get a little lei- 
sure, after the harvest is all in, go and thrust out these illegal intruders, oi which I 
have not the least doubt that I shall find a pretty swarm ; for I have observed that 
these gentlemen of equivocal allegiance are very remarkable for their enterprising 
spirit, where there is any chanee of getting at the public money. 



H68 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

we may have taken in arms ; nor do I know (hat our generals have 
expressed an intention of considering them as traitors ; but if they 
have taken any such persons, and have expressed any such in- 
tention, the arguments which I have offered, are, I think, quite 
sufficient to induce our ministers to make these generals hold their 
hand. I by no means approve of that loose way of thinking, with 
regard to the duties of a subject or a citizen, which would dissolve 
all the ties of allegiance, and justify men, at their mere will and 
pleasure, to join the enemies of their country, and make war 
against her ; I approve of no such wild notions, which must, in 
the end, lead to the most miserable of consequences, eradicating 
from the mind of man exery sentiment connected with the love of 
country; but in this particular case, this case of which the his- 
tory of the world presents us no precedent, and under all ihe cir- 
cumstances, some of which I have mentioned above, of the organ-' 
ization of our own army, I am decidedly of opinion, that to attempt 
to act towards persons taken in the American army rigidly upon 
the doctrine of unalienable allegiance, would be a step of which 
we should in a short time most sorely repent. 

All the world must see, at the first blush of the question, that 5 
the Englishmen taken in the American army stand upon a very. 
different footing from Englishmen who should be taken in a French' 
army. It is not a question that waits for reasoning — it is one that 
rushes at once to the heart — which tells every man that these per- 
sons, though we may lament that they are there, are not deliberate 
traitors. The far greater part of them must, according to all pro- 
bability, be of nearly the same description, as to education and 
situation in life, and also as to degree of information, as the sol- 
diers of our army ; and I put it to the reader's candour to say, 
whether, if any of the men (I mean the common soldiers) who 
have so gallantly fought for their country in Spain, had been in 
America, they would have thought it treason to enter the Ame- 
rican service, especially after residing many years in that country ; 
having formed entirely new connexions, and perhaps hardly recol- 
lecting the place they were born, in England, Ireland, or Scot- 
land? To apply the maxims of the law of treason, grounded on 
the doctrines of unalienable allegiance, to men so circumstanced, 
is, I am very sure, to stretch it farther than the common sense of 
mankind will approve of; and, therefore, I cannot refrain from 
again expressing an anxious wish, that our ministers will interpose 
their authority to put a stop to any further prosecution of any 
such attempt. 

It is not impossible, though I do not think it very likely, that 
some few of those persons who have gone from this country, or 
who may be said to have fled from this country on account of their 
political opinions, may have been found in arms against their na- 
tive country. On their part, there would be no excuse on the 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 169 

score of rvtint of information, but surely, after being so frequently 
(old by the hirelings of the day that it would be a good thing if 
they were to leave England — after hearing for many years among 
the loyal elect, the toast of " Old England'— and those who do 
, not like the country let them leave it ;" after hearing a member of 
parliament, in his place, exclaim, " Those who do not like the 
country, damn them, let them leave it" — after having so long 
heard themselves thus atrnsed, and thus bidden to go out of the 
country, surely even these men must be very much surprised, at 
I least, to find themselves accused of a failure in their duties of al- 
i legiance. There appears to me, too, to be a good deal of impolicy 
; in making all this fuss a' wit traitors found in the American army 
J or navy. If the facts have been true to the extent in which they 
J have been stated in the newspapers, and which I do not believe, 
it seems that there was no great wisdom discovered in the divulging 
of them. I think that if I were a minister I should do every 
thing in my power to keep such facts from being promulgated ; 
for, after all, what can possibly be gained by it? If twenty or. 
thirty of the men thus taken were put to death, and if no retalia- 
tion were to take place, (as I hope it would not,) what should we 
gain I We might prevent some few British-born subjects from en- 
tering the American service, but America has quite men enough 
without them ; men, too, upon whom she can as safely rely. And 
we should only blazon through the whole world the melancholy 
fact that, for some reason or other, there were Englishmen ready 
to take up arms against their country, and in that case, not only 
to encounter all the dangers inseparable from war, but in addition 
thereto, the risk of being hanged, ripped up, and chopped to 
pieces ! And would this be a desirable thing ? Would it be to 
our houour to cause this fact to be known in every town, in every 
village, in every house, in every hovel throughout the civilized 
world? Say, for mere argument's sake, that this terrible act 
would be consonant with strict justice— say, for argument's sake* 
that all the reasons which I have urged against it, and which, in 
abler hands, might have been urged with much greater force and 
effect — say that all these reasons are totally devoid of weight, 
still, tell me where is the policy of thus astounding the world into 
the knowledge of a circumstance so little calculated to impress 
mankind with a favourable opinion of our character? If it be 
urged that the evil is of such a magnitude as to call for the contem- 
plated act, even at the risk of national character, to what a la- 
mentable state must we have arrived ! But I contend that, be the 
magnitude of the evil what it may, it is impolitic to adopt the 
measure to which the ministers are encouraged by this malignant 
and savage writer ; for it is easy to perceive, I think, that such a 
measure must give rise to a conviction in the mind of ey^ry British 



1 i Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

subject in America, that the only way to ensure his safety against 
the claims of England, is to effect the total destruction of that 
power by which alone those claims can possibly be enforced. 



AMERICAN WAR. 

We have now the Gazette account of the battle of Chippewa,, 
and also the American account of that memorable and important 
coniesf. I guessed our force at about three or tour thousand men; j 
and it appears now that it did not amount to three thousand, out of 
which we lost in killed, wounded, mi sing, and prisoners, 878! 
The Americans say that their force was inferior to ours- They 
state that they have eighteen of our officers prisoners ; and theic 
account agrees with ours as to the numbers that they took in the 
battle. Our Gazette says that we took ' several hundreds of 
prisoners." But why have we no detail ? why no detailed list of 
what we have captured ? Surely, several hundreds are soon count- 
ed. A thousand sheep, spread over a field, are counted in tea 
minutes. These omissions look suspicious. It is certain, how- 
ever, that the Americans did retreat with the prisoners they had 
made, and that they had to contend with a most gallant enemy. 
Numerous as were the battles of Napoleon, and brave as were his 
soldiers, I do not believe that even he, the greatest warrior that 
ever lived, can produce from his wars an instance of a contest so 
well maintained, or, in proportion to the numbers engaged, so 
bloody, as this of Chippewa. Our own account tells us that our 
first in command was 8< verely wounded, our second in command 
severely wounded, and taken prisoner ; and when we come to see 
the American account, we find that their first and second in com* 
mand were both so severely wounded, that neither was able to 
write or to dictate a despatch to the government, several daya 
after the battle. Yet we find that this little band of raw troops, 
(as the Americans must be,) though really left without heads to 
direct them, took off the cannon and the prisoners that they had 
captured during the engagement. It appears from general Drum- 
raond's account, that the cannon of the two armies were run up 
to each others' muzzles ; that the fight was so very close, and the 
confusion so great, that the Americans, in one instance, put their 
horses into the limbers (or shafts) of our cannon, instead of the 
shafts of their own ; and that the Americans cut down our artil- 
lerymen from the very sides of our guns. 

The Morning Chronicle expresses its great satisfaction, that 
the expedition has, at last, sailed from Portsmouth to America. 5 
A few more battles like that of Chippewa would cause this organ, 
of the whigs to change its tone. As I said before, it does appear 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 171 

lat the Americans, after the bailie, retired some miles ; and so 
does an array very often, when it has been successful. How 
many victories, good God ! did we win in Portugal and Spain 
without stopping an hour on the field of battle, but retreating from 
it with all possible speed ? Did we not win a most glorious victory 
at Corunna; and did we not instantly embark, in the utmost con- 
fusion, leaving the town to the beaten enemy ? Did we not win a 
still more glorious victory at Talavera, which earned the winner a 
title ; and yet, did we not leave even our oivn wounded to the 
humanity of Napoleon's gallant army ? Now the Americans, though 

(they retired, they retired with our second in command, and a 
great many other prisoners. Why, therefore, may they not, iii 
fact, have been the victors, if we were the victors at Corunna 
and Talavera? But it is of little consequence who really gained 
the victory. The important fact is, that we have now got an 
enemy who fights as bravely as ourselves. For some time the 
Americans cut no figure on land. They now have proved to us, 
that they only wanted time to acquire a little discipline. They 
have now proved to us what they are made of; that they are the 
same sort of men as those who captured whole armies under Bur- 
goyne and Cornwaliis ; that they are neither to be frightened nor 
seduced ; and that, if we should beat them at last, we cannot 
expect to do it without expending three or four hundred millions 
of money, keeping up all our present taxes, and adding to their 
amount, or imposing new taxes. These are the facts that are now 
proved to us ; these are the natural consequences of battles such 
as that of Chippewa. 

It has been stated in the newspapers, that admiral Cochrane 

{has taken Baltimore, the capital of Maryland ; that Stonington 
has been deuiolished; that we are about to attack New-London ; 
and, therefore, says the writer, Jonathan must look sharp about 
him. Baltimore is hardly taken, and will, I dare say, never be 
taken, without a most bloody contest. But supposing it to be so ; 
for our ships of great size can go quite up to the city, unless pre- 
vented by batteries on shore; suppose the fact to be true, how 
are we to maintain that position ? And if we could maintain it for 
a year, how much nearer are we to our object ? Baltimore is ex- 
posed to our attack, from its vicinity to the sea, and from the im- 
mense river that opens the way to us to reach it. But what is that 
place, or even all the state of Maryland, when we are talking of 
this great republic, inhabited by free men resolved to defend their 
country ? From the first, it was allowed by me that we should 
do immense mischief ' ; that we might burn many villages, towns, 
and cities, destroy mills and manufactories, and lay waste lands 
upon the coast, to the great loss and distress of numerous indivi- 
duals. But at the same time I anticipated, that these acts would 
»3n!y tend to unite the Americans, and, in the end, produce sucb 









IT'2 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

a hatred against us, as would not only render final success impos- 
sible, but as would tend to shut us out from all future connexion 
and intercourse with that g;ea; and fertile region. There seemed 
to be wanting just such a war as this to complete the separation of 
England from America ; and to uiake the latter feel that she had 
n<- safety against the former, but in the arms of her free citizens. 
We were told, as fhe reader will recollect, that the eastern states 
would, in case of war, separate themselves from the rest of the 
union, and join themselves to us. But it now appears that our 
first grand stroke of destruction was given in these our favourite 
states. Sionington,we are told, is demolished; and New- London 
is, we are told, about to share the same fate. These places lie in 
our favourite state of Connecticut, in the midst of the eastern 
gtates, who were to join us against their own republican govern* 
ment ! This fact is, of itself, sufficient to overset all the stories 
about a separation of these states. These states now see what 
they have to expect at our bands j and, indeed, they did not 
want to see their towns destroyed, in order to be convinced that 
their safety lay in their firm obedience to the union, and in the 
resolution to stand by their own government. It is, I suppose, 
intended to batter them into a separation ; but who is fool enough 
to believe that such a mode will succeed with such a people? 
The demolition of Stonington will, in all probability, render the 
name of England so hateful in our favourite states, that no man 
will dare to raise his breath in defence of her conduct. If we had 
confined our land war to Canada, it is possible that Mr. Madison 
might have found it very difficult to make the people see how 
they were interested in the contest ; but the moment we showed 
our design of carrying fire and sword along the whole coast of the 
United States, that moment we bound the whole of the people up 
like the bundle of sticks described in the fable ; especially as the 
manifestation of this design was accompanied, on the part of al- 
most the whole of our public prints, with the open declaration 
that it was necessary, now that we had the opportunity to subju- 
gate America, to counter-revolutionize her, to destroy her go- 
vernment, to reduce her to her former state of dependence on us. 
It is of great importance that we bear in mind, not only these de- 
clarations, but also the lime when they began to be made. 

Y\ hile the duration of the power of Napoleon was not doubted ;| 
as long as there appeared to be no prospect of seeing him put; 
down, a sort of ambiguous language was held as to (he object oi\ 
the war with America. Mr. Madison was accused with being aj 
friend to Napoleon ; he and his countrymen were abused j but! 
nothing was distinctly said as to the object of the war. As the! 
affairs of Napoleon grew gloomy, our prints, from time to time,f 
grew high in their language as to ihe object of the American con-' 
test; and when Napoleon was actually put down, they threw o£i 



Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 173 

all reserve, and in the most distinct terms, with an air of official 
authority, they informed us that we were not to lay down our arms 
till we had effected in America what had been effected in France. 
The government, we are told, was to be done away. Mr. Madi- 
son was to be deposed, as Napoleon had been. Our army, then 
in France, were to do in America what they had just done in 
Fiance ; that is to say, they were " to deliver the Americans 
from an oppressive usurpation, and restore them to thei;\/brmer 
happy connexion with a paternal government." These declara- 
tions were, at the period 1 allude, daily made in the Times and 
the Courier. Nay, it is only a few days ago that the Times news- 
paper, in expressing its regret that the sovereign prince of the 
Netherlands had sent an ambassador to America, observed, that 
if he had stopped for a few months, he might have been spared the 
disgrace of sending an ambassador to such people as James Madi- 
son and his party. Let it further be borne in mind, that soon af- 
ter the deposing of Napoleon, there having been a debate in the 
house of commons relative to the reduction of the navy, there was 
published in the newspapers of the next day, a paragraph, pur- 
porting to be the report of a speech of Sir Joseph Yorke, one of 
the lords of the admiralty, in which paragraph it was stated, that 
though Napoleon was deposed, we could not yet disarm to any 
great extent, seeing that there was Mr, Madison yet to depose. 
The newspapers have ever since held the same language. They 
have, since the deposition of Napoleon, wholly left out of sight (he 

I original ground of the war. Nay, they pretend to have no ground 
at all; but insist that, as we now have the opportunity ; as we 
have a fleet afloat, and a disciplined army that we know not what 
to do with, we ought, while the occasion offers, to re-conquer Ame- 
rica, or, at least, to despoil her in such a way that she shall never 
again be able to show her nose upon the sea. They, have pub- 
lished a list of the American navy ; and have observed upon it, 
that if America be not now cut up ; if she be not now, while France, 
Spain, and Holland are unable to assist her ; if she be not now 
crippled past recovery ; if she be now suffered to have peace ; if, 
in short, she be not now destroyed, it is fearful to think of the de- 
gree of naval power at which she may arrive in the course of ten 
or a dozen years of uninterrupted prosperity, having had a proof 
of what her seamen are capable of performing. That I have here 
not overcharged, not, in the smallest degree, misrepresented the 

1 language of these prints, every reader will allow ; and, indeed, I 
must confess they spoke very nearly the language of the whole nation. 
How the people of America, from whom nothing can be kept se- 
cret, have received this language, I know not ; but if I were to 
judge of their feelings by what I know to be their character, I 
should suppose that it must have filled them with indignation, if, 

Ijt indeed, that feeling did not give way to that of contempt. They 



I 74 Letters of William C'obbett, Esq. 

must, however, have seen the absolute necessity of union and of 
exertion, unless they were disposed to become again dependent 
upon England ; unless, in short, they were disposed to become 
again royal provinces, governed by the sons of the nobility of 
England. The time chosen by our prints for the making of those 
undisguised declarations was very suspicious. It was the moment 
when France, Spain, and Holland, were put into a state which ren- 
dered it impossible for them to assist America. It was the mo- 
ment when we were freed from all enemies ; wheu all the maritime 
force of Europe was in our hands. It was, in short, the first seem- 
ingly fair opportunity for subjugating America that had been offer- 
ed us since the conclusion of the American war; and this oppor- 
tunity the language of these prints must have led the Americans 
to believe was about to be taken for the purpose of executing the 
project. In the year 1794, or 5, a Mr. Rutledge, who was a 
judge in South Carolina, made a speech, in which he besought 
his country to join itself with the republic of France in a mortal 
war against England. " She will," said he, " never forgive us for 
our success against her, and for our having established a free con- 
stitution. Let us, therefore, while she is down, seize her by the 
throat, strangle her, deliver the world of her tyranny, and thus 
confer on mankind the greatest of blessings." As nearly as I can 
recollect them, these were his very words. I am sure that 1 have 
the ideas correct. I and many more cried aloud against the bar- 
barity of such sentiments. They were condemned in speeches 
and pamphlets innumerable. Bui have we not reason to fear 
that the present language of our newspapers may make the Ame- 
ricans think that Mr. Rufledge was in the right; and make tbem 
regret that they did not join the republic of France in the war? If 
they had taken (hat step in the year 1795, the republic of France 
might sfiil have been in existence, and the situation of all Europe 
very different indeed from what it now is. The English party, 
the love of peace, and the profits of peace, were too powerful in 
the United States for those who thought with Mr. Rutledge. 
Much was said about principles; but it was the love of (he pro- 
Jits of peace which prevailed over every olher consideration. 
The Americans have now seen enough to convince them, (hat it 
would have been their soundest policy to have taken one side or 
the other, long ago. What they wished for was, peace and com- 
merce ivilh all the world ; but they have now found, (hat to enjoy 
some peace, they must be prepared to have some war ; an;] that 
to enjoy independence and freedom, they must make themselves 
respected in arms. If (he wap should end without our doing 
something approaching very nearly to the subjugation of Ameri- 
ca, it will prove a most calamitous war to us. Because it will 
have added immensely to our debt ; it will have left us horribly 
exhausted ; it will have given France a time of peace and ccono- 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 175 

my wherein to recover her wonted means of meeting us by land 
or by sea; it will have made the Americans both a military and a 
naval nation ; it will have given to these two nations the most pow- 
erful motives to a close connexion, dictated by their mutual wants 
and safety ; it will have rendered America not only completely 
independent of us as to manufactures, but will have implanted in 
the bosoms of her people a hatred against us never to be removed 
or mollified. If, indeed, we were to subjugate America, to make 
the states again our colonies '; or were, at least, to destroy all her 
ships of war ; raze all her fortifications ; stipulate with her never 
again to make a cannon, a ball, or a pound of powder ; to place in 
our hands, as guarantees, all her principal seaports, and all the 
mouths of her rivers ; and to abstain from every sort of manufac- 
ture in the country. If we were to accomplish either of these, 
we might have little to apprehend as the consequence of a five 
or six years war against America. But if we accomplish neither, 
how will the case stand ? Why, thus : she will, shigle handed, 
have carried on a war against us. She will have, through the 
world, the reputation of having been able, alone, to beat England ; 
for to defend herself against us is, in such a case, to beat us. 
Other nations, sore at the sight of our predominance on the sea, 
will look up to America as to a balance against us. They will 
naturally seek a connexion with a country offering innumerable 
sources of beneficial intercourse. She whose products are so 
abundant, and so much in request all over the world, and who 
holds out such great advantages to every man of enterprise, will 
have all the world, England excepted, for her friends. No nation 
will envy or hate her but England ; because, to every other na- 
tion, the increase of her population, her produce, her commerce, 
and her naval power, must be advantageous. She may, and she 
doubtless will, suffer much in this war. Many of her towns will 
be knocked down ; thousands of her people will be greatly injured. 
But if she keep on' launching ships of war, as she is doing at pre- 
sent, she may have a score of ships of the line and forty frigates 
at the end of a six years war, manned with such officers and sai- 
lors as those whom we have already seen afloat, and to whom we 
have had the inexpressible mortification to see so many English 
ships strike their flags, after contests the most desperate and 
bloody. If this were to be the effect of this war of drubbing, 
how should we have to curse those malicious writers, who, for so 
many months, have been labouring to cause this nation to believe 
that it will only be a holiday undertaking to drub, to humble, and 
to subdue the American nation ! I am aware, that there is a de- 
scription of men in this country who say that, even with all these 
possible, and even probable, evils before us, we ought to have un- 
dertaken, and ought now to proceed with, the war. "Because," 
say these men, ** even, if these evils should come teith the war, 



1/6 hellers of William Cobbett, Esq, 

they would all, or, at least the worst of them, come without it. 
Not to have undertaken the war, or to put a stop to it now, would 
have been, and would now be, to leave the Americans in posses- 
sion of the naval reputation they have acquired, in possession of 
all the means of augmenting their naval force, and, what is. of still 
more consequence, in the enjoyment of real freedom, and of hap- 
piness unparalleled under a republican government, at once an ex- 
ample and an asylum to all the disloyal of every country in 
Europe. Leaving her thus, she must, in the present state of 
men's minds, prove the destruction of all kingly government, and 
of every hierarchy in the world. Therefore, even failure in the 
war is no objection to persevering in it, seeing that the worst that 
can arise out of the war must arise out of suffering this republic 
to enjoy peace, especially with the reputation that she has acquir- 
ed on that element, the absolute dominion of which we have so 
long claimed. Wnen there is at least a possibility of destroying 
this republic by war, and no possibility of avoiding destruction 
from her without war, reason says, go on with the war /" 

I know that there are many that argue thus, because I have 
heard them argue thus. And I must confess that, if I could bring 
myself to their feelings as to the consequences which they dread, 
I should be bound to say that their arguments were unanswerable. 
As the matter stands, I could, I think, give a satisfactory answer; 
but as every one likes to have something left to be supplied by 
himself, I leave the reader to give to these arguments such an answer 
as, after some minutes of sober reflection, his mind may suggest. 

Before I conclude, however, I must repeat what I have before 
said, as to the dilemma in which we are placed. It is very certain 
that America, at peace, in the enjoyment of such perfect freedom, 
and such great superiority, under a republican government, the 
very head of which does not receive above five thousand pounds 
a year, and having no established church, and no use for the hang- 
man, it is certain that America, presenting this picture to the 
world, might and would keep alive the spirit of jacobinism in 
Europe; and that spirit might, in a few years, produce very se- 
rious consequences. But, on the other hand, to prevent her from 
presenting this dangerous picture to the world, we must keep up 
all our present taxes, and, perhaps, continue to make loans. 
This is the dilemma — the grand dilemma, in which we are at pre- 
sent placed, and out of which, I must confess, I do not see how 
we are to get, unless we were, as the Times supposes we shall, to 
finish this insolent republic in the space of " a few months." 



i 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 177 



AMERICAN WAR. 

The expedition against the city of Washington, or, rather, the 
result of it, has produced, in this country, the effect which might 
naturally have been expected : " The Yankees are done for ! 
Their metropolis has been taken ! They ran away at the sight of 
our troops ! Mr. Madison and his government have decamped ! 
The states are left without rulers ! The ' ill-organized association/ 
says the Times newspaper, ' is on the eve of dissolution ;' and the 
world i3 speedily to be delivered of the mischievous example of 
the existence of a government founded on democratic rebellion," 
Thus says the Times, and thus says a vast majority of this taxed 
;nation. This was to be expected. The name of metropolis was 
jenough. The people here were sure to look upon it as the London 
of America ; and, of course, to conclude that America was sub- 
dued, or very nearly subdued. This is, too, the notion held forth 
by the newspapers ; and, in fact, it universally prevails. Now, 
the truth is, that the city of Washington is no city at all, except 
in name. It was begun to be built only about sixteen years ago. 
The congress has not met at it above ten or twelve years. It was 
built by a sort of lottery, the shares of which fell, at one time, to 
less than 10 per cent, of their cost. The lottery was drawn ; the 
prizes were not paid. I do not, indeed, know what may have been 
done since I left the country ; but at that time it was the general 
opinion that it never would be a place of any consideration, though 
ithe Law compelled the congress to meet there. " Wherever the 
king h there is the court;" but the republican government of 
America, though they may have had the puerile pride of erecting 
i capitol and a president's palace, could not make a city, which 
implies a numerous population, and great wealth. 

But our officers, naval as well as military, appear to have per- 
ceived what would hit the taste of war-loving Johnny Bull. John- 
ny, who has no doubt of his having conquered France, would, of 
course, be delighted at the prospect of conquering America, to- 
wards which he would necessarily look on the capture of Wash- 
ington as an almost last step ; and, indeed. I heard some people, 
usually very sensible, say, upon the receipt of the news, " Thank 
God, we shall now have peace, and have the income tax taken off." 
W T hat, in the eye of common sense, is the event of which we have 
made such a boasting ? We have, with an enormously superior 
naval force, ascended a very capacious bay in America, to the 
distance of about sixty miles. We have landed an army ; we have 
repulsed the militia of superior numbers ; (as rve say ;) we have en- 
tered a straggling town of wooden buildings, which our own news- 
papers had told us the Americans themselves had acknowledged 

23 



1 78 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

to be defenceless; we have set fire to several buildings and some 
ships; we have, thank God, burnt the president's palace, and a 
building on a ridiculously grand scale, called the capitol, where 
the legislature of the union held its sittings ; we have then retreat- 
ed, and regained our ships with stirh haste* that we have been 
compelled to leave our dead, and many of our wounded officers, as 
well as men, to the mercy of an enemy, whom our newspapers-^call 
unprincipled, cowardly, and cruel. This is what the Morning 
Chronicle calls one of the most " gallant dashes' 1 of the war. 
This is styled success. This is a victory to boast of. This is 
(o induce the Americans to go down upon their knees, and solicit 
peace on any terms! Why did our army not remain at Wash- 
ington ? When the French got to Berlin, Vienna, Naples, Hano- 
ver, Madrid, Amsterdam, they remained in them as long as they 
pleased. When they got to Moscow even, they remained for some 
weeks. But we — we capture the metropolis of America, and we 
. decamp instantly. We set off in such haste, that we leave be- 
hind us many of those who have been wounded in the enterprise. 

Oh, reader ! how has Napoleon been abused for leaving behind 
him his sick and wounded, when he retreated from Russia! and 
yet we can extol the bravery and wisdom of those who, in our 
own service, do the same thing ! Far am I, however, from blam- 
ing Mr. Ross for leaving his wounded behind him ; for, in the first 
place, he was sure that he left them in the hands of a very humane 
people; and, in the next place, by delaying his departure, he 
might have added a very long list to his killed and wounded. 
But it is impossible to find out any apology for Mr. Ross, upoa 
this occasion, without furnishing at! apology for the so-much-repro- 
bated conduct of Napoleon. Mr. Ross assigns the best possible 
reason for his wonderful expeditious retreat to the ships; namely, 
he was afraid that if he delayed this movement, the militia might 
collect in such numbers as to intercept him. The militia. What, 
that same sort of troops whom he had just overthrown, as if were, 
by merely showing his red coats? How were they to collect in 
such haste ? Whence were they so speedily to come ? Thank 
you, Mr. Ross, for this acknowledgment, though, perhaps, made 
involuntarily ; because it proves clearly that you were fully con- 
vinced that you were not among a people on whose cowardice 
and whose want of patriotism you could place a moment's reliance ; 
because it clearly proves, in short, that if we succeed in this war, 
we have a people, an armed people, to subdue. 

There is one fact stated in (he report of the enterprise, to 
which our news writers pay no attention; but which is of very 
great importance. After the American troops bad gone off, and 
left ours to enter the city, General Ross, our commander, had his 
/torse shot under him, as he was going along at the head of his 
men, by a gun fired from the window of a private house. There 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 1 T9 

can be no doubt that the ball was intended for the rider. This 
might have given him, and, I dare say, did give him, a tolerable 
lively idea of what sort of people he was got amongst ; and it ought 
to convince wise Johnny Bull, that to follow the advice of the 
Times newspaper, and send a large force into the heart of the 
country, there to take up a " commanding position," is much 
easier upon paper than it is upon land. The Times and Courier 
are nettled that our commanders did not dale their despatches 
from the capitol. I dare say that they had an inclination that 
way; but then the militia might have collected! In short, they 
had not time to do it with safety. That was the reason why they 
did not do it! and, for my part, I think the reason quite satisfac- 
tory. The episode to the " brilliant dash," seems to have been 
marked with nearly all the characteristics of the "brilliant dash" 
itself. Sir Peter Parker, with his ship's company and marines, go 
in search of a parcel of militia in a wood. The reader may not, 
perhaps, be aware, that there is no sort of resemblance between the 
American and the English militia. These militia in America re- 
ceive no pay, no clothing, no arms, from the government. Every 
man goes out in his own ordinary array, and carries his own arms 
and accoutrements. £Jinety-nine times out of a hundred he finds 
his own powder and ball. In short, it was a body of the people, 
voluntarily assembled, and acknowledging no superior not of their 
own electing: this was the sort of force against whom Sir Peter 
Parker marched. They were, as usual, greatly superior in num- 
bers ; and, as usual, they were defeated, and ran away. But, in 
the end, Sir Peter lost his life, and his second in command sue- 

ceeded in what? Why, in bringing off to 

the ship almost all our wounded ! 

As to the destruction of the public buildings at the city of Washing- 
ton, it will give great pleasure to all those who really love republican 
governments. There are palaces enough elsewhere. America wants 
none ; and it will, I dare say, be very Ions; before she will see an- 
other. There are very good buildings in Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
and many other elegant and populous cities. There wants no 
grandeur ; there wants no capitol, no palace, no metropolis, no 
court. All these bring taxes and standing armies; and the Ame- 
ricans want neither. There was, the other day, an article in the 
Times newspaper which struck me as a remarkable instance of the 
force of habit, and as a clear proof iiiaf a man aiay accustom him- 
self to slavish ideas, till he, in good earnest, regards as a reproach 
every mark of freedom. The article to which 1 allude, was a 
commentary on a paper published by a person to whom the de- 
fence of New-York was committed, and who, in a very pressing 
manner, invites, exhorts, requests, and beseeches persons capable 
of bearing arms, to come forth and augment his force, &e. Sec. 
Upon this, the editor of the Times observes, that this officer cut-? 






180 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

a most sorry and lamentable figure ; and he jests most merrily 
upon the tone of the poor gentleman, " who," says he, " invites, 
exhorts, requests, beseeches : any thing but commands." Well! 
and what of that? Are the people less happy because no one as- 
sumes a commanding tone towards them? Is their situation less 
enviable for that? Is their character less dignified because they 
will not suffer themselves to be commanded in any way whatever ? 
Tbey do not like to be commanded by any body ; and why should 
we quarrel with them on that account ? 

This editor, and many others, seem astonished that Mr. Madi- 
son ahould have been two years at war without being prepared 
for defence. But what do they mean by defence ? Three hun- 
dred — nay, twenty hundred thousand men, would not be sufficient 
to guard every point, where a few men can be landed for a few 
hours, on a coast (including bays and mouths of rivers) of three or 
four thousand miles in extent. Such adventures as admiral Coch- 
rane gives an account of, might, with such a navy as ours, be per- 
formed on such an extent of coast in spite of two or three millions 
of regular soldiers. The defence of America, and, indeed, of any 
country, does not mean the preventing of the bombardment of a 
village, or the burning of a city, or the carrying off of " stock,'' 
It means the preventing of that country from being subdued, or, 
so much crippled as to make a disgraceful peace. And this de- 
fence, in America, must be left to the people themselves. Mr. 
Madison could raise no regular armies. The people do not give 
him the means to do it. They know very well that, for want of 
a regular army, they are liable to have some towns knocked down, 
or sacked ; but they prefer this to the putting of a standing army 
in the hands of any man in their country. We, indeed, are of a 
taste widely different. We have field marshals, hundreds of ge- 
nerals, and colonels, and majors, and captains, and barrack-masters, 
and commissaries, and cadets, and so on. We have military de- 
pots, academies, colleges, and so on, to a long list. We have, be- 
sides, great numbers of foreign officers, some of whom have had 
commands in England itself, and of counties of England. We 
have also great numbers of foreign soldiers in our pay. This is 
our taste. We like to have these people. But, then, we very 
cheerfully pay for all these fine things. We are willing to pur- 
chase our safety in this way. Now, as I never heard that the Ame- 
ricans have quarrelled with us on this account, why should we quar- 
rel with them for their taste ? They prefer a few towns sacked or 
beaten down now and then, to the paying for a standing army, for bar- 
racks, depots, military colleges. Their taste may be bad. They 
may prove themselves very stupid in not liking to see their streets 
crowded with beautiful, tall, straight gentlemen, with pretty hats 
and caps, with furs, and whiskers, with cloaks, and glittering 
swords, and boots, that shine like japan mugs. But stupidity is no 



Letters of William Cobbclt, Esq. 1 81 

crime ; and if they do not like these things, we, who have so 
much more refinement amongst us, and so much more elevation of 
mind, should view them with pity rather than with scorn ; should 
speak of them with compassion, rather than with reproach. We 
might as reasonably reproach them (and the French too, by the 
by) for not having a taste for tythes. We like these too. Mr. 
Burke said so many years ago. We like to give our clergy a 
tenth part of our crops. But, then, have we not our churches and 
cathedrals, our prayers and sermons, our bells and our singing, our 
Lord's supper, our baptism, confirmation, churching of women, 
absolution of the sick, and burial of the dead. We have all these 
things, and a great many more, in return for the tenth of our crops ; 
andthe Americans (poor fellows!) have none of them. Yet we 
ought not to reproach them on this account. It is, doubtless, bad 
taste in them ; but, as I said before, bad taste is not criminal. 

Another thing I wish to point out to the attention of the reader. 
He frequently sees, in our newspapers, extracts from American 
papers, all tending to degrade the government and decry its mea- 
sures. Out of the three or four hundred newspapers, published 
in America, there are, probably, ten or twelve who proceed in 
this tone. These are carefully sent hither by consuls, or other 
persons residing there. From these only, extracts are published 
here ; and, be it observed, that if we possessed the papers on the 
other side of the question, we should be exposed to utter ruin if 
we were to publish such extracts from them as it would be neces- 
sary to publish in order to give the public a fair view of the state 
of men's minds in America. But the hireling prints here do one 
thing for us: they, by their extracts, prove to us how great is 
freedom in America. The Times tells us, that one paper in 
America expresses its opinion that the president himself had a 
narrow escape from Washington : and that another expresses its 
regret that he was not taken by the enemy. Now, reader, ima- 
gine, for a moment, the case of an enemy landed in England, and 
some writer expressing his regret that the said enemy had not 
captured, the king ! You tremble for the unfortunate creature. 
I see you tremble. Your teeth chatter in your head ; I hear them 
chatter : and well they may. How many loyal men do I hear 
exclaim : " Send the traitor to the gallows ! rip out his bowels and 
throw them in his face ! Cut offhis head ! Quarter his vile carcass, 
and put the quarters at the king's disposal !" Yet we hear the 
American writers wishing that their chief magistrate had been 
taken by the enemy ; and we do not find that any thing is either 
said or done to them. Their publications are suffered to take 
their free course. If they be true, and speak sense and reason, 
they will gain adherents, as they ought. If false, or foolish, they 
will only gain the writers hatred or contempt, which, I dare say, 
has been the case in the instance before us. But. reader, let us 



182 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

not, with (his fact full in our eyes, be induced to believe that 
the Americans have nothing to fight for ; or that any man who 
loves freedom can wish to see a change in the government ; or, at 
least, in the sort of government which exists in that country. As 
to Mr. Madison, against whom our hired men rail so much, he 
cannot be much to blame for any thing relating to the war. It 
was the congress ; the representatives of the people; the real, 
not the sham representatives of the people — who declared war. 
In fact, it was the people themselves, who were resolved no 
longer to endure that which they had so long, and so loudly com- 
plained of. A war in America must be the people's war. The 
defence of the country ?mist be left to the people. Not only as 
to the fighting, but as to the time, place, and every thing else be- 
longing to the war. The people know very well the extent of 
their danger. They are well apprized of every thing. They 
were aware beforehand that what has taken place would take 
place; and though many individuals must and will suffer, that 
will excite no general discontent against the government. Of one 
thing I am very certain ; and that is, that we are carrying on pre- 
cisely that sort of warfare which all the real friends of republican 
government would wish to see us carry on. It is a sort of war- 
fare (especially when the ground of the war is considered; which 
cannot fail to unite the parties, into which the people have been 
divided; nor do I think it at all improbable, that we may cause 
Mr. Madison to be president four years longer than he would have 
been without our war against his country, and our threat to depose 
him. For many men will naturally say that, though they would have 
liked to see bim, following the example of Washington and Jefferson, 
decline a third term as president ; yet, seeing that his so doing 
might be interpreted as a mark of submission to us, he ought 
again to be elected. 

The favourite idea in England appears to be, that we ought to 
send out a great overwhelming force, get possession of some place 
in the heart of the country, and there compel the government to 
surrender up the republic on our own terms. I suppose that our 
commanders knew better than to attempt any thing of the kind. 
I suppose that our government knew better than to order them, or 
to authorize them to make any such attempt. And yet, what are 
we to do by such a mode of warfare as we are now carrying on ? 
Suppose we were to get possession of New-York, and some other 
maritime towns, what should we gain but an enormous expense 
to keep those places ? Cooped up in them, how ridiculous should 
we look ! No : we shall never beat that people, unless the people 
themselves join us ; and as this has not been the case yet in any 
one instance, what reason have we to expect but that if never will 
be the case, in spile of s.ll the allurements held out to that people 
in the prospect of participating in the support of the army, the 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 1 33 

navy, the church, the law, the nobility, and the financial system 
of the former " mother country ?" But we must not, in this larger 
view of the American war, overlook particular events, and espe- 
cially that just announced to us from Fort Erie. 

In my last I noticed the bloody battle of Chippewa. After that 
battle, it appears that the contest was renewed (our army having 
been reinforced) in the front of Fort Erie, into which the Yankees 
had retired, and where ourgallaut countrymen and their associates 
seemed to have been resolutely beut to fulfil our wishes, and to 
give them " a drubbing." Alas! the "drubbing" fell upon our 
own gallant army, who amounted to only about two thousand men, 
and who were compelled to retreat with all possible speed, leaving 
905 either dead, wounded, or prisoners ! The American general, 
Gaines, says, that he destroyed our people at the point of the 
bayonet. Our genera! says that the angle of a bastion was blown 
up with two hundred of our men on it. This last might be, and 
yet the case would not be much altered in our favour. Such a 
conflict as this I never before read of. It surpasses that of Chip- 
pewa ; and that surpassed, in point of proportionate destruction, 
any thing in modern warfare. And it ought to be observed, that 
a great part of this army of Yankees were militia; some of them 
volunteers ; and not a man of them who would suffer any one to 
say that he had him under his command ! It is, then, a fact be- 
yond all dispute, that the Yankees will sometimes fight ; and as 
there is no such thing as ascertaining beforehand the precise time 
wlien the fighting fit will come on them, they being such an irre- 
gular sort of people, and subject to no kind of discipline, I think 
| it is the height of prudence in our commanders on the Atlantic 
coast not to venture too far at a time from our ships. 

Upon hearing of the bailie of Erie, (for it cost as many men as 
several of the battles of Wellington,) I was, I must confess, eager 
to hear what the Times writer would be able to say upon the sub- 
ject. I had half a mind to hope that he would begin to repent of 
the part he had acted in the stirring up of this war; but on reflec- 
tion, I concluded that, like the reprobates mentioned in the good 
book, repentance was not in his power. This conclusion was right, 
as the reader will now see. 

" The unfortunate event which cast a partial shade over the 
successes of our Canadian army, is at length communicated to us 
in an authentic shape. W"e extract from the papers received 
yesterday from that part of the world, a copy of Sir George Pre- 
vost's general order, dated Montreal, 25th of August, which states 
the loss sustained at Jhe attack on Fort Erie, on the 13th pre- 
ceding, at 802 killed, wounded, and missing. Compared with the 
whole number of General Druramond's force, this lo3s is no doubt 
very considerable ; but we are glad to see no hint given that the 
event is likely to occasion our troops to fall back. The misad- 







184 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

venture must, no doubt, be ranked amongst those chances of war 
to which the bravest armies, and best-laid plans, are subject. 
It was preceded by a brilliant achievement, executed four days 
before by captain Dobbs, of the royal navy, who, with a party of 
seamen and marines, most gallantly boarded and took two armed 
schooners, anchored close to Fort Erie. The consequence of this 
capture being to deprive the enemy's position of a great part of 
its defence, Gen. Drummond resolved to follow it up by a general 
attack on Fort Erie and the American entrenchments. In this 
daring attempt he had nearly attained complete success. The spirit 
of our brave soldiers surmounted every obstacle. They had ac- 
tually entered the fort, and had already turned part of its guns 
agaiust the enemy's last point of refuge, when suddenly a tremen- 
dous explosion took place, which not only destroyed many valuable 
lives, but necessarily involved all our operations in confusion, and 
left no alternative but a precipitate retreat to our first approaches. 
It is evident, therefore, that General Gaines's boast of having re- 
pulsed our men at the point of the bayonet is idle gasconade. 
The lamentable result was, in all probability, occasioned by acci- 
dent ; but if the American general had any share in it, it was one 
which reflected more credit on his policy than on his bravery. To 
spring a mine on an assailing enemy may be, in such circumstances, 
an allowable mode of destruction ; but whilst humanity is pained 
by contemplating such an event, there is no counter feeling of 
admiration for the heroism of those by whom the dreadful deed 
was executed !" 

Oh ! you vile hypocrite ! " humanity'''' on your lips ! on those 
same lips from which have proceeded so many urgent exhortations 
to exterminate the Americans ; and who, in this very same num- 
ber of your sanguinary paper, commend Sir Thomas Hardy for 
having bombarded, and, as you then thought, burnt to ashes the 
dwellings of the people of the village of Stonington ! Humani' 

ly f This cant may do in a country where cant is so much in 

vogue ; but be you assured that it will only excite contempt in 
the breast of the enemy. You can discover " no heroism," can 
you, in the defenders of Fort Erie, who had lost their water-side 
defence before the battle began ? The three officers of colonel 
Scott's regiment, who came out of the battle alive and not wound' 
ed, would, like Job's servants, tell you a different story ; unless, 
indeed, like Bobadil, they were (which I am sure they would 
not do) to attribute their beating to the planets, instead of the 
American bayonets. For my part, I believe General Gaines's in 
preference to General Drummond's report. Not because I ques- 
tion the veracity of the latter, but because I know that he might 
be misinformed, and that General Gaines could not be misinformed, 
as to the fact. But, as I said before, this fact of the blowing up 
of the angle of a bastion does not materially affect the merits ot 



**» *^*imm* ' <fe- 







Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 18,5 

the case ; and, unless the American people be very different in 
their natures from all other people, the event must have created a 
wonderful sensation in the country ; and I am sure, that, in the- 
eyes of any man in England whose reason is not totally deadened 
by prejudice, it must have excited a dread that, if we pursue that 
project of subjugation so strongly recommended by the writers 
here, we are now embarked in a war of extraordinary bloodshed, 
of no ordinary duration, and of an expense that will keep on all 
our present taxes, and occasion constant, annual loans. 



TO THE PRINCE REGENT. 

During the years 1811 and 1812, while I was imprisoned 
in a felon's jail, for having written and caused to be printed and 
published, an article on the subject of flogging of English local mi- 
litiamen, at the town of Ely, in England, and about the attendance 
of German troops at the ceremony ; while I was expiating this 
offence by two years imprisonment in a felon's jail, and by paying, 
at the close of the period, a thousand pounds fine to you, acting in 
the name and behalf of your Father, who, during my imprisonment^ 
became afflicted with his present malady ; during this long period 
of seclusion from my home and from the wholesome air, I addressed 
to you several letters on the dispute with America; in which let- 
ters I endeavoured to convince you that the dispute, if it termina- 
ted in war, might lead to very fatal consequences to this country. 
i, in these letters, stated clearly the grounds of the dispute ; I 
traced the causes of our ill blood with America to their origin ; I 
pointed out how the dispute might be put an end to without a war ; 
I endeavoured to show you the probable fatal consequences of a 
war with that nation of freemen, taking up arms voluntarily, and 
upon conviction of the goodness of their cause. I spent whole 
days and nights in endeavours to warn you against believing the 
reports of the venal wretches who were labouring to persuade this 
nation that we had only to go to war with Mr. Madison in order 
to effect a breaking up of the American union ; and I was the 
more anxious on this point, as it was the general opinion, that, un- 
less the slates could be induced to divide, we never should IoDg 
be able to cope with them in a war within their territory. 

As the vanity naturally belonging to an author makes me con- 
clude that you read these letters with great attention, I will not 
here go into any detail on their contents. But if we now look at 
the state of the war in the gross, without any particular feature 
being taken into view, does it not appear that we should have been 
fortunate if my advice had been followed? We should never then 

24 



i 86 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 

have heard of the affairs of the Java and Guerriere, the Macedo* 
nian, the Avon, and many others; nor should we have ever heard 
of the battles of Lake Erie and Lake Champlain. 

For the present I will confine myself to the last-mentioned bat- 
tle, which has excited great attention all over Europe, and has 
called forth, on the victors, the most unqualified expressions of 
praise and admiration from our neighbours, the French, where, be 
it observed, nothing is published but with the consent of the govern- 
ment. 

This is a naval affair ; an affair purely naval. There appears 
to have been no accidental circumstance to affect it. The force 
on each side was as nearly equal as need be, in order to come at a 
proof of the relative merits of the two fleets. The battle, there- 
fore, will be considered of ten thousand times more importance in 
this light than in the light of its effects upon the campaign in Ca- 
nada. But, before I proceed to the consequences of this battle, I 
think it beat to say a word or two upon the subject of the place 
where the battle was fought. Lake Champlain is partly in your 
father's provinces of Canada, and partly in the territory of the re- 
public of America. It is, perhaps, 150 miles long, and from half 
a mile to 10 or 15 miles wide. I do not know that I can much 
better describe it than by comparing it to the SERPENTINE 
RIVER in Hyde Park, which is fed out of the lakes in Ken- 
sington gardens. The boundary line across Lake Champlain is 
very neatly and aptly represented by the embankment and bridge 
which separate the upper from the lower part of the Serpentine 
River ; and the ponds and ditches leading from that separation 
down through Chelsea to the Thames, very luckily come to re- 
present the British part of Lake Champlain, which empties its 
overflowings into the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec* 
and which is the only highway from the republican territory to 
those two chief seats of the power of the house of Brunswick in 
that country. 

Whether it was this strong resemblance in the shape of Lake 
Champlain and that of the Serpentine River which led, some few 
months ago, to the ingenious device of exhibiting hostile fleets in. 
miniature on the latter, I have not been informed ; but there are 
few persons in this country, I believe, who do not sorely grieve to 
think, that in the battles upon these two waters the representation 
should have differed so widely from that of reality, the accounts of 
which have recently come to hand. The battle on the Serpen- 
tine River, though contested for some time pretty stoutly by the 
Yankees, was at last decided in our favour. Britannia, 1 am told ? 
(for I saw it not,) with the trident o^ Neptune in her hand, was 
seen crowning her sons with bay, while poor Jonathan, with his 
fank hair hanging over his drooping head, stood a captive under 



Letters of William Cobbeti, Esq. 181 

Ilia own flag, which .was hanging reversed under that of jour royal 
house ; thereby indicating not only a naval superiority over the 
Yankees, but anticipating that, whenever they should dare to me&t 
us, they would be beaten and captured. There was not, I believe, 
an opportunity of exhibiting this scene to the emperor of Russia 
and king of Prussia, who were thus deprived of a sight of those 
signs of ecstatic delight which the people expressed, and of a hear- 
ing of their heart-cheering shouts, when they saw poor Jonathan 
haul down his colours, and when they heard the martial bands 
strike up " Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves /" in the 
chorus of which they joined with their half a million of male and 
female voices, till the sound seemed to fill all the space between 
the earfh and the sky. The foreign sovereigns were, for want of 
time, deprived of this sight. But in the harbour of Portsmouth, 
on the day of your arrival there in company with them, I myself 
saw, on board of some ships, the flag of poor Jonathan again re- 
versed, and hanging under that of your Royal House. 

Alas, sir ! how different has been the reality from the anticipa- 
ting representation ! upon Lake Champlain, that Serpentine River 
on a grand scale, how different has been the event from that of the 
representation, which drew forth the air-rending shouts of half a 
million of the people of this country ! Aye, of half a miUion of a 
people, on whom it is no more than a just eulogium to say, that 
they are, in every respect, worthy of being the subjects of the 
king that reigns over them, and of the regent who acts in the name 
and behalf of that king ! There are some few exceptions, to be 
sure ; some few malecontents ; some few, whom neither .king nor 
tfaod can please. But, speaking of them in a mass, your father's 
people are Worthy of such a sovereign, and sueh a sovereign is 
worthy of such a people. 

To return to the battle of Lake Champlain, I have deeply to 
lament that WE HAVE NOT HAD ANY OFFICIAL AC- 
COUNTS PUBLISHED RESPECTING IT, and yet it is 
now the 7th of November. It is not for me to presume to know, 
:or even to guess, why no such account has yet been published. So 
far am I from attempting to find fault upon this occasion with 
men in power, that I am not even disposed to inquire into their 
motives for not publishing the account in question. I am quite 
willing to allow, that they are the best possible judges of what they 
are about ; that they know best when to publish and when to be 
silent. But I may, and I must, lament their not publishing, because, 
in the meanwhile, the republican account is gone forth to the world, 
and which account is calculated to make a most injurious impres- 
sion upon the world, particularly with regard to the relative value, 
of the naval characters of the republic of America, and of the uni- 
ted kingdom, of Great Britain and Ireland. If the republican ac» 



188 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

count be true, the event was, in this view of it, the mo3t fatal that 
can be imagined ; for not only were your royal father's ships su»e« 
rior in both men and guns ; not only was his majesty's fleet beaten 
by the republicans under such circumstances, but it was taken, all 
taken, and that, too, without any very great slaughter! The re- 
publican account is as follows ; and, as you will perceive, it is 
published from that very city of Washington, the public edifices 
of which your royal father's fleet and army so recently burnt to 
the ground. 

Washington, September 19. 
Copy of a letter from Commodore Macdonough to the Secretary of the Navy, 
dated U- S. ship Saratoga, off Plattsburg, Sept. 11. 
" Sir — The Aimightyhas been pleased to grant us a signal victory on Lake Champ- 
lain, in the capture of one frigate, one brig, and two sloops of war of the enemy. 
1 have the honour to be, very respectfully, sir, your obedient servant, 
(Signed) T. MACDONOUGH, Com. | 

Hon. W. Jones, Secretary of the Navy. 





BRITISH. 






Gtms. 


Men. 


Killed. Wounded. 


Large ship, 


39 


300 


50 60 


Brig, 


16 


120 


20 30 


Growler, 


11 


40 


6 10 


Eagle, 


11 


40 


8 10 


13 Gun-boats, 


18 


550 


two probably sunk. 



Total, 95 1050 84 110 

Several of the gun-boats struck; but the sinking state of the large vessels requir« 
ed the assistance of the men in our gallies, so that not being able to take possession 
of them; they were able to save themselves by fight. 



AMERICAN. 

I 

Guns. Men, Killed. Wounded. 

Saratoga, ship, 26 210 28 29 

Eagle, brig, 20 120 13 20 

Tic'onderoga, schr. 17 110 6 <5 

Preble, sloop, 7 30 2 

10 Gun-boats, 16 350 3 3 

Total, 86 820 52 58 

Thus, sir, if this account be true, (for I do only speak hypo- 
ihetically,) the royal fleet had more guns and more men than the 
republican fleet, and yet the royal fleet was not only beaten, but 
all CAPTURED! This American commodore is very laconic. 
He does not seem to regard such an event as worthy of any very 
particular detail. He does not seem to have observed any par- 
ticular instance of courage or skill in his officers and men. In 
abort, he seems to have thought, that what had happened was no 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 1 89, 

more than what his country would expect, notwithstanding all that 
the people of England had seen on the Serpentine River. He 
talks of no difficulties ; no dangers ; no resistance ; and, f/*the ac- 
count be true, he took the whole fleet before he had killed and 
wounded a fifth part of its men, and before he had lost in killed 
and wounded only about an eighth part of his own men. Mr. Ma- 
dison, in his account of the battle, if it may be so called, is still 
more provokingly laconic and reserved. He says, " The British, 
squadron lately came into action with the American on Lake 
Champlain ; it issued in the capture of the whole of the enemy's 
ships. The best praise of Captain Macdonough and his intrepid 
comrades, is the likeness of his triumph to the illustrious victory 
which immortalized another officer on another /a/ce." Thus hint- 
ing to the world that such events as this are nothing new. Mr. 
Madison, it was anticipated by the sages who write in the Times 
newspaper, would talk very big about this victory, and thereby 
blind the people with regard to their dangers. He seems to have 
been determined to make them false prophets. He does but just 
notice this victory in a transient sort of way, and dwells with great 
force, and with studious care, on the dangers which the people of 
the republic have to meet. 

Now, sir, this republican account is either true ox false. I do 
not pretend to say that it is true, though it has not been officially 
contradicted in any one particular, and though my brother jour- 
nalists seem, by implication at least, to admit the trulh of it, I 
have not, I do not, and I will not, say that it is true, even should 
every other man in the kingdom say it. But I humbly presume that 
I may venture to assert that it is either true or false. If looked on 
as true, it certainly must produce, and must already have produced, 
a very great effect on the minds of thinking men in all those parts 
of the world to which a knowledge of it has extended. It will 
produce this effect : it will cause it to be believed, that a ship of 
the royal navy of Great Britain is not equal to the task of com- 
bating a ship of equal force belonging to the republic of America, 
commanded by officers, and manned by men, of that republic. It 
is impossible for any man, not a fool, or not blinded by some sort 
of passion, to be ignorant that such must be the effect of this bat- 
tle, if the republican account of it pass for true. It is equally im- 
possible for any man to hope that it will not pass for true, until it 
be explicitly and officially stated to he false, and until it be proved 
also to be false. The world will naturally ask how it has hap- 
pened that the British government, who are so exact in publishing 
every account of our naval operations; who do not omit the cap- 
ture of a merchant-ship, whereof a history is sent to John Wilson 
Croker, Esq. ; should have been so backward upon this particular 
occasion; that the people who witnessed the anticipating repre- 



190 Letter* of William 6'obbeit, Esq. 

aentations on the Serpentine River, and who are so eager for 
news from America, should not yet have been officially inform- 
ed of the battle of Lake Champlain, though a mention of it 
has reached Europe, and even England, in the president's 
speech. The world will naturally ask how this has happen- 
ed. The world, sir, looks very anxiously towards the republic. 
They see in her a power rising fast to a rivalship with us. They 
look towards her with rather more than the eyes of impartiality. 
Our navy has excited great jealousy and envy in the world. That 
navy the world wishes to see matched, or, at least, held in check. 
This is not at all wonderful; but, for my part, I shall not state 
what I look upon as the true causes of it. As a proof of the 
sentiments prevalent upon this subject in France. I here quote an 
article from a French paper of the 3flth ot September : 

" On the situation of the United States. — The capture of 
Washington has made a great deal of noise in Europe. It was 
generally believed, on the credit of the London newspapers, that 
that event would have a decisive influence on the war which rages 
between Great Britain and the Uniled States. Already people 
were expecting to see the American government humbly soliciting 
peace, and submitting to all the conditions which it might please 
the cabinet of St. James to impose upon it. Some persons, who 
judge of the United States from the old nations of Europe, confi- 
dently announce the dissolution of the American republic, and did 
not conceive what could exist after the every way reprehensible 
destruction of the capitol and other buddings of Washington. It 
.seenied to them that that rising city was the palladium of America, 
and that its fall must draw along with it that of all the states which 
compose this great and fine confederation. Profound alarm, it was 
said, had seized all the inhabitants of the United States ; every 
province was hastening to deprecate British vengeance, by de- 
taching itself from the federal union ; Boston, Philadelphia, Balti- 
more, New- York, Charleston, Savannah, were on the point of open- 
ing their gates to the conqueror, and re-entering the colonial sys- 
tem of England. The better informed, however, were far from 
participating in this opinion. They knew that the great majority 
of the Americans were attached to their government, and would 
deem no effort too painful to support their independence. There 
is much talk of the parties which exist in the United States ; but 
these parties are not factious: they never fail to unite when the 
country is in danger. In America, as in England, men dispute 
about the acquisition of power ; but their patriotism is never 
shaken. Their very discussions nourish public spirit, and elevate 
national pride and the sacred love of liberty above every other 
sentiment. The strength of the United States is not in the mari- 
time towns ; it lies in that numerous population who cultivate the 



Letters of William Cobbeit, Esq. 191 

around, and seek subsistence in the midst of forests. These hardy 
cultivators, these indefatigable hunters, form excellent troops, easily 
disciplined, and who brave every fatigue and danger. They are 
the sons of men who triumphed at Saratoga and Bunker's Hill. 
The recollection of these exploits still animates their courage. 
This inheritance of glory is a national property which they will 
transmit entire to their descendants. These hunters, known by 
the name of riflemen, are formidable enemies. They use muskets 
of a particular kind, and at the distance of two hundred paces they 
seldom miss their aim. .In the war of independence they did 
a great deal of mischief to the English armies, and deprived them 
of a prodigious number of officers. It appears certain, that the 
expedition of the Chesapeake, under admiral Cochrane, had for its 
object to force the American government to recal the troops which 
menaced the frontiers of Upper and Lower Canada. This diver- 
sion would have been advantageous to the English ; but it did not 
succeed. While the efforts of the British army expired before 
Baltimore, the Americans were destroying the Englishjieet onLake 
Champlain, and beating the army of Canada, which retired with 
considerable loss in men and stores. On this occasion we have 
heard mention, for the first time, of those famous militia of the 
state of Vermont, who so gloriously distinguished themselves in 
the last war, under the name of Green Mountain Boys. They 
have iost neither their courage nor their renown. The defeat of 
the English on Lake Champlain exposes the frontiers of Lower 
Canada. If from Pittsburgh the Americans proceeded to St. 
John's, a little town badly fortified at the head of the lake, they 
can arrive in two marches on the banks of the river St. Lawrence, 
opposite Montreal, and make themselves masters of the beautiful 
plain of Chambli, the most abundant of all Canada in pasturage 
and grain. It is not on the coasts that the fate of the war will be 
decided, but in the interior of the country, and on the banks of 
Lake Champlain and Ontario. 

The English are good soldiers ; they possess both honour and 
courage ; but the war they have undertaken against the United 
States does not depend either on a maritime expedition, or on a 
battle gained. Obliged to fight at a great distance from thei^ 
country, they repair with difficulty their losses, either in men of 
ammunition, whilst the Americans easily recruit themselves. The 
expenses of England are enormous, as we may judge from the 
price of a single piece of cannon transported to Lake Ontario. It 
is estimated to have cost a thousand guineas. The British minis- 
try thought, no doubt, that in taking the advantage of their maritime 
superiority, to insult the shores of the United States, and to menace 
the commercial towns with complete destruction, they would have 
produced in that country a powerful opposition, which would com- 



1-92 Letters of William Cobbcll, Esq. 

pel the American government to sue for peace. This expectation 
must be disappointed ; it shows how little America is known in 
Europe. The actual government does not want the support of 
what is called the commercial interest ; it derives all its force 
from the frank and generous adhesion of the farmers, who are the 
most enlightened men in the United States, and the most attached 
to their country. Besides, the burning of Washington, instead of 
abating their courage, has only tended to irrifate them against an 
enemy who tramples on the principles adopted by civilized nations. 
Mr. Madison, who enjoys the highest honour that can be desired — 
that of presiding over the destiny of a free people ; Mr. Madison, 
I say, displays a noble character. All Americans rally at his 
voice; and resolutions, full of energy and patriotism, have already 
been adopted in the greater part of the towns which are most ex- 
posed to bombardment and to Congreve's rockets. The war has 
become national ; and the Americans, who have fought courage- 
ously, will henceforth fight with fury. It is not very difficult to 
foresee the issue of this sanguinary contest, too long maintained 
for the honour of humanity. After wasting herself in vain efforts, 
England will be forced to grant peace 011 coiidilions advantage- 
ous to the United Slates, and ought to think herself too happy in 
preserving her empire over Nova-Scotia and the two Canadas. 

I expect that these reflections, intended to enlighten the numerous 
readers of the Journal de Paris, upon a war more important than 
is generally supposed, will excite the indignation of the English 
journalists. Those gentlemen attribute to themselves the exclusive 
privilege of reasoning upon events, and they are indiscreet enough 
to consider the Americans as rebels ; but this consideration will 
never prevent me from speaking the truth, and making known 
freely an opinion which I believe to be just. Nobody esteems the 
English nation more than I do; but I confess I should be much 
vexed if she obtained decisive advantages over the United States. 
She needs neither an increase of influence nor an accession of 
tenitorj'. Her interest imperiously commands her to respect the 
rights and independence of other people, and no longer to weary 
fortune." 

This, sir, is the language of the French ; these are their sen- 
timents upon this war against the American republic. She has a 
friend in every people in Europe, the people of this country ex- 
cepted. The world wishes success to the American republic, 
because the world envies England her power. The result of the 
battle of Lake Champlain has, perhaps, caused more real rejoicing 
than ever was caused by any battle in Europe during the last 
twenty years. 

In your speech of the 8th instant, an account of which I have 
now before me, the newspapers report you to have said, that 

II notwithstanding the reverse which APPEARS to have OCN 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 193 

CURBED on Lake Champlain, you entertain the most confident 
expectations, as well from the amount as from the description of 
Force now serving in Canada, that the ascendency of his majesty's 
arms throughout that part of North America will be effectually 
secured." From this it would seem that the " reverse'* on Lake 
Champlain is not yet ascertained by your cabinet ; that it only 
appears that there has been a " reverse.' 9 A reverse I have al- 
ways understood to mean a check after a series of victories. 
Whether this be the character of the "occurrence" in question, 
I must leave for abler judges to decide. But I am quite rejoiced 
to hear that you entertain such " confident expectations" of seeing 
the " ascendency" of his majesty's arms "secured" in Canada; 
because I felt, with many others, some fear upon this score, when. 
I found that an army of fourteen or fifteen thousand men, under 
the commander in chief in person, had retreated in haste, and 
with greal loss, from before a fortress containing five or six thou- 
sand Americans. The republican commander asserts* that he 
captured a considerable part of our army, having, by his militia 
and volunteers, pursued it a considerable distance on its retreat. 
Unless this account be false, there appears to me still to be some 
little room for fear thai the ascendency of his majesty's arms in 
that quarter will not be maintained. You say, as the newspapers 
tell us, that you build your confident expeclations on the amount 
as well as the description of the force now serving in Canada. 
But this force is exactly the same that appeared before the fort 
at Plattsburgh ; it is not changed since that time ; nor has there 
been any change in the force of the enemy. So that, to me, it 
does not, I must confess, appear at all likely, that the prospect in 
Canada should brighten before another campaign has made some 
very material change in our favour. It is said that Sir George 
Prevost is recalled. If that could give us an advantage over the 
Yankees ; if that could defeat their triumphant fleets, the mea- 
sure would be of great value. 

The newspapers state that you spoke of " the brilliant and 
successfid operations in the Chesapeake and at the City of Wash- 
ington." Having lately had the misfortune to see a couple of my 
barns on fire, I can the belter conceive the brilliancy of the scene 
at Washington. But, sir, while this scene was exhibited there, 
: unfortunately, the republicans were sallying from Fort Erie on the 
army of General Drummond, and the fatal battle was preparing on 
Lake Champlain. What are the operations in the Chesapeake, 
when we look towards Canada ? If, indeed, we had been able to 
REMAIN at Washington, the case would have been different. 
So far from that, our commander stated that he hastened away, 
leaving several of his wounded officers behind him, because he 
'eared that the militia might collect, and cut off his retreat to the 
hips. Incursions like this are not much thought of in the world, 



Or 



Id 1 Letters of William Cobbdt, Esq^ 






when men are talking of the probable result of war. It is (rue^ 
that the character of our movements in the Chesapeake '« has* 
produced on the minds of the inhabitants a deep and sensible 
impression." But if I am to judge from the message of Mr. Ma- 
dison, that impression is one of the most resolute hostility towards 
England; and from every thing that I hear from that country, I 
am convinced, that a disposition to yield to us, in any one point, 
was never so far from the breasts of the republicans as since our 
operations in the Chesapeake. However, we shall not now be 
many days before we KNOW for a certainty what the American 
people say, and what they think, upon the subject of the war. 
For the congress will go into committees on the matters mentioned 
in the President's message. Those committees will make reports 
expressive of their opinions. Those reports will be discussed in 
the senate and house of representatives. When agreed to, they 
will be published. When published, they will express the senti- 
ments of the unbought, unsold representatives of a whole people, 
those representatives being chosen by the free voices of all the 
men in the country, who pay taxes to the amount of only a penny 
in a year. There can be no room for doubt in such a case. No 
man can pretend to say that the congress does not speak the voice 
of the people. It must speak the people's voice. It is elected 
for a very short space of time. The people have the power to 
turu out any member in a few months after he displeases them. 
All the people read. They all look narrowly to the conduct of 
those whom they have sent to the congress. And, therefore, 
whatever the congress says, we may be well assured the people 
themselves say. I dwell with more earnestness upon this point, 
because our venal prints have long been labouring to persuade us 
that the American people are opposed to their government, and 
because you are reported to have talked of the war begun against 
us by " the government" of America. The government, in thai 
country, does not mean any man, or set of men, who rule over 
people, who command a people, to whom the people owe alle 
giance. The people of America acknowledge the existence cl 
no such a power, of no such a thing. They look upon the go 
vernment as consisting of their agents ; persons appointed ana 
paid by them for conducting their public affairs. They loofc 
upon these persons as no more than their fellow citizens. Th< 
most learned and most wise of their fellow citizens, to be sure . 
but still, their fellow citizens. The persona so employed have no I 
the power to do that which the people disapprove of; nor cat J 
they have the inclination, seeing that they have no interest to dt I 
that which the people dislike. There is none of them who cai I 
have any private interest in war ; none of them can gain by war 4 
It is impossible to fatten their families by the means of a publi< ■ 
expenditure ; and as to patronage, they know of no such thing 



\ 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 



195 



nor could they derive any advantage from it if they had it. 
Therefore, whatever the congress says, you may be sure the 
people say, in spite of all the malicious and silly assertions of our 
public prints, whose efforts are continually directed to mislead the 
people of this country, whose want of information renders them 
the easy dupes of these designing knaves, having a corrupt press 
in their hands. 

It is stated in the newspapers, that you, in vour speech, said 
that this war originated in the « MOST UNPROVOKED AG- 
GRESSION on the part of the government of the United States." 
It is to be lamented that you did not take this opportunity of con- 
tradicting, in a pointed manner, the assertion contained in Mr. 
Madison's late message; because he most explicitly asserts, that 
we were the aggressors. He sajs : 

" Having forborne to declare war, until, to other asoxessions, had 
been added the capture of nearly one thousand American vessels, 
and the impressment of thousands of seafaring citizens, and until 
a final declaration had been made by the government of Great 
Britain, that her hostile orders against our commerce would not be 
revoked, but on conditions as impossible as unjust ; whilst it was 
known that these orders would not otherwise cease but with a war 
which had lasted nearly twenty years, and which, according to 
appearances at that time, might last as many more — having mani- 
fested on every occasion, and in every proper mode, a sincere de- 
sire to meet the enemy on the ground of justice, our resolution to 
defend our beloved country, and to oppose to the enemy's perse- 
vering hostility all our energy, with au undiminished disposition 
towards peace and friendship on honourable terms, must carry 
with it the good wishes of the impartial world, and the best hopes 
of support from an omnipotent and kind Providence." 

Now. sir, what I could have wished to see was a contradiction 
of this assertion, with regard to these thousand vessels, and these 
thousands of impressed American citizens. You may be well 
assured, that this message will be re<\d with deep and general in- 
terest on the continent of Europe. This message and your speech 
are before the world. Not before this nation only, but before all 
the nations in the world. Every man will form his own judgment 
upon them. It is not reasonable to suppose that Mr. Madison's 
assertion will be disbelieved, unless it be proved to be false. It 
may do here for our public piii?;s to call him, as fhey do, "liar, 
fool, traitor, usurper, coward," arid the like. This may p?iisfy 
those who inhabit the country through which run? the Serpentine 
River ; but it will have no weight, or, at least, ho weight against 
Mr. Madison in other countries. His assertion, therefore, rela- 
tive to the thousand vessels, and the thousands of impressed sea- 
faring citizen?, I could wish very much to see con'r adicted and dis- 
proved, in some official and authentic way ; for until that be done, 



196 Letters of William Cobbeti, Esq. 

I am afraid that we may lay our account with his being believed by 
a great majority of the world. And if he be believed ; if the 
world do believe that we really did capture a thousand republican 
vessels ; that we really did impress thousands of seafaring citizens 
before the congress declared war, I am afraid that it must be 
doubted whether the declaration of war was wholly an unprovok- 
ed aggression on the part of America. I am aware that there will 
be no doubt upon the subject in this country, which never was en- 
gaged in a war so popular as this. I believe that if the whole 
nation, paupers and all, were put to the vote, that there would ap- 
pear for the war nine hundred and ninety -nine out of every thou- 
sand. The press worked up the people to the war pitch, where 
it keeps them. There are prevalent these notions : 1 st, That the 
republic joined Napoleon in the war against us ; 2d, That we now 
are able to punish her for this ; 3d, That she went to war for the 
purpose of robbing us of maritime rights essential to our very ex- 
istence ; 4th, That she may now, no7v,norv be crippled forever ; 5th, 
That we ought, at least, to continue the war until we have effaced, 
by victories over the republican ships, the recollection of the af- 
fairs of the Java, the Guerriere, the Macedonian, the Avon, and of 
those on the lakes. The events in the Chesapeake, and the de- 
scription of them, have caused the nation to look upon the repub-. 
licans as cowards. This is very inconsistent with the before-men- 
tioned notion ; but it prevails. So that here are all sorts of ingre- 
dients necessary to make a war popular, and popular it is beyond 
every thing that ever was popular. It is quite useless for any one 
to attempt to remove any of these notions, which have taken fast 
hold, and which it will require some years of war to shake. Jona- 
than, therefore, has no ground for reliance on any opposition in. 
this country. The opposition in parliament will only be as to the 
mode of prosecuting the war. If they censure, the burden of their 
censure will be, not against the war, but against those who have 
not done enough against the enemy. The war, therefore, has 
popularity to recommend it. This I allow, and, in so doing, I 
have the mortification to confess, that all my labours against the 
war have proved wholly useless. Still I think myself bound to 
endeavour, as occasion may offer, to give my reasons against its 
further continuance. 

I was happy tu see, in the newspaper report of your speech, 
that you have " a sincere desire to bring this war to a conclusion 
on just and honourable terms ,•'* and as Mr. Madison expresses the 
same desire, let me hope that the conclusion of the war may soon 
take place, without waiting till more sea battles have effaced the 
recollection of those which have already taken place. But, sir, 
what a pity it is that the war did not end with the war in Europe. 
What a pity it is (hat Mr. Madison has to complain of delays on 
our part to give effect to our own proposition for a direct oegotia- 



Letters of William Gobbell, Esq. 197 

Hon, after we had refused the offer of the mediation of our own 
ally, the emperor of Russia ! And what a pity it is, that the Ame- 
rican people have, in our pubiic prints, seen so much abuse of 
their chief magistrate, and so many threats to reconquer their 
country ! 

Since writing the above, the debates on your speech have reach- 
ed me. With the exception of Mr. Whitbread, and Sir Gilbert 
Heathcote, all agreed that America was the aggressor in the war, 
and, as was anticipated, the only fault imputed to the ministers was, 
that they had been re?niss in their measures against her ; though, 
on the other hand, it is reported of one member who moved the 
-address, that he said, that "our successes against her had been 
UNVARIED." The first lord of the admiralty stated, that he 
had not received the official account of the affair of Lake Champ- 
lain, which, besides, appeared from the language of the two houses 
to be considered as but a trifling sort of a thing, unworthy of any 
very particular notice. The speech of Mr. Whitbread was long, 
and, therefore, cannot be inserted here ; but that of Sir Gilbert 
Heathcote shall have a place in this letter ; and, as you cannot 
suspect him of any disloyal motive, I hope you will give his words 
a patient attention. 

"Sir Gilbert Heathcote rose and observed, that it would 
have been most satisfactory to have heard from ministers that the 
negotiations at Ghent were going on favourably. That he could 
not approve of that part of the address which promised further 
support in the American war, inasmuch as the cause of the dispute 
had ceased since the general pacification on the continent. When 
we withdrew our Orders in Council, the Americans had rescinded 
their relative acts ; so that the right of searching American ships 
for British seamen alone remained as a subjett of controversy. 
When peace was established throughout Europe, we could not 
think of exercising that right ; so that this last point of contention 
fill to the ground naturally. The war must, therefore, be carried 
on for other reasons, for the sake of what might happen, and not 
for any present grievance. He thought the situation of the coun- 
try did not warrant ministers in doing this. Were our finances so 
flourishing, the property tax a burthen so light and easy that it 
mattered not what might be the amount of the annual national ex- 
penditure ? There might be some pretext for ministers to keep 
on some of the late war taxes, after the country was placed on a 
peace establishment, provided there was an excess of expenditure, 
to make up any deficiency in balancing the accounts ; but no pre- 
text whatever for retaining such imposts for the prosecution of a 
war which appeared unnecessary. It appeared to him that we 
feared the rising power of America, and wished to curtail it, This 
was an important feature in this war, for, if persevered in, we must 



198 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

be prepared to completely subjugate our enemy, or we should be 
in a worse state than we now are. 

We had tried to subdue America thirty years ago, and had • 
failed, when she was nothing like so powerful as at present. We 
should recollect how we left France situated, whilst we were enga- 
ged in (his contest; she was at profound peace, recovering from 
her wounds, and, if the war was protracted or unprosperous, she 
might join America, or attack us herself. A strange policy seems 
to be pursued ; whilst we were waging war in America to prevent 
her becominga powerful naval state, close at home, in Flanders, we 
were creating one. Let us recall to mind the history of the reign 
of Charles the Second, or, in latter times, the politics of the Dutch 
Cabinet previous to the engagement off the Dogger Bank in 1TB1, 
and the march of the Prussian army, under the late Duke of Bruns- 
wick, into Holland, in 178T. Wouldany,one having a knowledge 
of these transactions, believe that our ministers would, in all times 
to come, be able so to manage the Dutch Cabinet, as to eradicate 
all French influence there, as that power we are now creating may 
not, at no very distant time, become highly dangerous to the naval 
supremacy of this country. With respect to the conduct of the 
war, he did not wish now to enter into it ; he was against the war 
altogether. In these contests we must expect the alternate vicissi- 
tudes of fortune. He had always understood that Sir George 
Prevost was both a brave and intelligent man, and, no doubt, he 
had good reasons for what he had done. That in a country like 
America, after having lost the naval support, on which depended 
the provisioning the army and conveyance of military stores, with 
the remembrance of Saratoga and York Town, be must have been 
a hold man indeed who would have placed himself, by advancing 
inio the country, nn a situation to be surrounded. As to what 
was said in the public prints of the mortification felt by the troops 
which had been sent from Spain, he believed, if more confidence 
was placed in their exertions than on those of the rest of the army, 
we should be disappointed. In the outset of the last American 
war, it was boasted here that a battalion of British troops would 
march across the continent. The flower of our army was sent, 
and commanded by officers who had served with reputation in the 
German war under Prince Ferdinand. The result is well known ; 
these troops, as brave as any in the world, were compelled, at two 
different epochs, to lay down their arms to the new raised leviea 
of America. He was against the continuance of the war." 

I agree with Sir Gilbert Heathcote in every word that he uttered. 
But he was almost alone. He had but one member with him. 
Thus, then, we are to go on with this war. A battle is to be 
fought now between the whole of our navy and army and those 
of the republic of America. She will not shy the fight. She is 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 193 

ready for us. The world is now going to witness the fill of the 
last republic, or the decline of the naval power of England. 
There will be no nledimn after another year of war. We must 
completely subjugate the Americans ; or openly fall before them. 
We must beat them; or they must beat us; and the beating must 
last during the existence of the parties. 

Mr. Whitbread asked if there was now any new ground of the 
war. Any new object. Nobody avowed that there was. But I 
fear the Americans will bear in mind, that the moment Napoleon 
was subdued, and our alarms in Europe were at an end, our public 
prints, the most patronised, openly proclaimed to the nation that 
the object now ought to be to subdue the American republic, and. 
to bring her back to the parmt state. And, which is never to be 
forgotten, the whole of the London prints, in giving what they call 
a report of the debates in parliament, published a report of a 
speech, which they gave as Sir Joseph Yorke's, who was one of 
the lords of the admiralty, and in which reported speech it was 
stated that, though Napoleon was deposed,, we must not yet lay 
aside our navy, seeing that we had another person to depose, 
namely, Mr. Madison. Far be it from me to assert that Sir Joseph. 
Yorke really did utter this speech : but it is very certain that it 
was published as his speech in all the London newspapers ; that it 
was so received all over the kingdom; and that its sentiments met 
with universal approbation. The language of the principal Lon- 
don prints has been, from that day to this, in perfect harmony 
with the tenor of this speech ; and when the news of the burning 
of the buildings of the city of Washington arrived, it was the com- 
mon notion that a viceroy was about to be sent thither to repre- 
sent and govern in the name of your royal father. Nay, I verily 
believe that, if the war ceases without our reconquering the Ame- 
ricans, as the chances are that it may, the people of England will 
be utterly astonished and confounded ! So that Jonathan must 
stand clear; for we are now safely launched against him. It is, 
in my opinion, idle to expect peace with America in a less space 
than six or seven years; for 1 am morally certain that Jonathan 
will not give in. He, as Lord Melville very justly observed, is at 
home ; he has all his men and tools upon the spot ; he has been 
bred to the rifle from his cradle ; he has a cheap government, or, 
rather, he love* to govern himself; and though he may not always 
feel bold, he will, first and last, give us a good, long, tough battle- 
Jonathan, sir, is not subject to fits and starts in his politics and 
notions of government. We found no rabble at the city of Wash- 
ington, to cry " vivent nos genereux allies" as did the canaille 
at Paris. Men must submit to a musket or bayonet at theif 
breasts ; but we shall, I am of opinion, not find submission go 
much further before us in America. 



i. 



200 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

Mr. Whitbread is deceived in supposing that it is the mere 
burning of the buildings at Washington which has united , as he 
calls it, all parties in America. There never' 'was any party our 
friend, in opposition to their own government; all parties cried out 
against our conduct. All parties cried out against what Mr. 
Madison complains of now. And as to a separation of the slates 
for our sake, no one but a downright fool ever thought of such a 
thing. It was always a false notion. There never was any 
ground for it; and experience will show us, that, in this respect, 
this nation has been listening to knaves, who were seeking their own 
interests in urging us on to the war. 

I am well aware that we shall do Jonathan an infinite deal of 
present mischief. And he seems aware of it too. Mr. Madison 
takes great pains to give his constituents a strong sense of the 
violent hostility they have to encounter. They are now, even at 
this moment, getting ready their powder and ball, their rifles and 
their swords, their haversacks and accoutrements. There will not 
be a man unarmed, or unprepared for battle, before the opening 
of the next campaign. A million of free men in arms will be ready 
to receive whoever shall march against them. The debates in our 
parliament, the language of our newspapers, which Jonathan knows 
so well how to estimate, will urge him on to measures of prepara- 
tion. He is expeditious in these matters beyond all nations upon 
earth. The battle will be a battle fit to engage the attention of 
the world. I have often been rebuked for endeavouring to draw 
the public attention to American affairs. I have never been able 
to persuade any body that America was of any consequence. 
She has now become of consequence ; and if the war goes on, as 
I fear it will, she will soon be of most fearful importance in the view 
of every nation in Europe. 

Perhaps you do not know that the present injuries, which we are 
able to inflict on America, are the greatest of blessings in the eyes 
of some of her statesmen. They have always wished for some- 
thing that would separate her as widely as possible from Great 
Britain. Whether wisely or not is another matter. They have 
always wished it; and if they can see this accomplished by the 
destruction of twenty or thirty towns on the coast, they will think 
the acquisition wonderfully cheap. 

" When to marry or to fight," as some are, " bo\h parties are 
equally eager; they soon come together." Both parties are in 
earnest, and eager, in this case ; and they will soon reach one ano- 
ther, though the distance between them is so great. The battle 
will be a famous one. A great kingdom, the mistress of the sea, 
and dictatress of Europe, on the one side; and the last of repub- 
lics on the other. Not only the question of maritime rights is now 
to be decided ; but the question of the nature of governments. 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 201 

The world is now going fo see whether a republic, without a 
standing army, with half a dozen frigates, and with a chief magis- 
trate with a salary of about five thousand pounds a year, be able 
to rontend, single-handed, against a kingdom with a thousand ships 
of war, an army of two hundred thousand men, and with a royal fami- 
ly whose civil list amounts to more than a million pounds a year. 
Nothing was ever so interesting as this spectacle. May the end be 
favourable lo the honour and happiness of this couofry and man- 
kind in general. I am, &c. &c. 

Wm. Cobbett. 



TO A CORRESPONDENT IN AMERICA., 

On the Expenses, the Taxes, Src. of Great Britain, compare^, 

with those of America. 

Dear sir, 

Your request would, long ago, have been attended to, if 
I had had more leisure for the task. For your valuable informa- 
tion relative to your agriculture, your flocks, and your manufac- 
tures, I am much obliged to you ; and if the two countries were 
at peace, you should receive from me all the useful informatioa 
which it is in ray power to give you upon several heads, which I 
shall not touch upon in a letter passing through the press, but 
which, I hope, the restoration of harmony between our two 
countries may, in a year or two at most, make it convenient for 
me to communicate to you through the ordinary channel of the 
post. 

You wish to know what is the amount of the annual expenses 
of our government ; what is the amount of the taxes paid to the 
government; what is the amount of our poor rates; what is the 
amount of our tythes ; and you wish me to show the comparison 
between these and the expenses and taxes in America. You also 
wish to have my account of the state of the people here ; or, in 
plainer terms, you wish to know how we stand as to mode of 
living, and as to crimes and punishments, compared with the 
people of your republic. 

To perform this task as it ought to be performed, is, I am afraid, 
beyond my power. I do, indeed, know more about these matters 
than many of my neighbours, but I cannot hope to discharge the 
task to your satisfaction, who are so accurate in all your state- 
ments and calculations, and who, with all your indulgence in 
other respects, are not to be satisfied, unless you find others as 

20 



20-2 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

accurate as yourself. Nevertheless, I will do all that I am able 
to do in return for the very valuable information which I owe 
solely to your attentive kindness, and which serves me as a guide 
through those numerous errors, with regard to your country, into 
which I £?ee others of my countrymen continually falling. 

I am happy that you have not called upon me for opinions ; 
that you ha*e not called upon me for conclusions, drawn from 
premises that I am to state ; that you confine your request to an 
account of mer& facts ; that you have not wished to expose me 
to the mortificaticsi of seeing the effort of my facts destroyed, or 
perverted, by the superior talents of those who might, with mer- 
ciless hands, lay foul of my feeble attempts at an application of 
these facts to the sustaining of any political theory. It is, I per- 
fectly agree with you, the best and fairest way, in such a case, to 
content myself with bare facta, leaving the reader, whether public 
or private, to draw his own conclusions ; because the points of 
controversy, if any arise, can be at one-e decided ; and because 
that reader, who is not competent to draw just conclusions from 
facts clearly stated, is not worth the attention of the writer, 
and is of little more consequence in society than a worm or 
a fly. 

In speaking of the expenses of our government, I must confine 
myself to the annual expenses, and* in this ca«e, to the last 
year's expenses; that is to say, the year which ended on the 5th 
January, 1814. As, in the comparative part of my statement, I 
must speak of dollars on your side, and of pounds sterling on 
our side, I will, for the sake of easier assimilation, take the dollar 
atJ&'S shillings, instead of four shillings and six pence, which is 
its real sterHug value. But the state of our paper currency will 
fully justify this advance ; and, indeed, it would justify a further 
advance. This, however, is not material enough to induce me to 
enter into any laboured calculations on the subject ; especially, as 
it is contended here, by a great majority of the government 
financiers, that our paper money has undergone no depreciation 
at all. 

To begin, then, with the expenses of our government : In Great 
Britain only, for the year ending on the 5th of January, 1814, 
the total sum expended was 113,968,610!. lbs. 10|d. I speak 
from documents laid before the house of commons, and, therefore, 
I run no risk of error or contradiction. This was the' total sum, 
exclusive of the expenditure belonging to Ireland. To go into 
a detail, as to the several particulars, would fill five or six 
numbers of my Register; but the great heads of the expen- 
diture it may be worth your while to know. These were as 
follow ; 



■■ 



Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 203 

Uharges on account of the national debt for the year, £4l,S97,335 17 

Civil list, - - - I,(H8,00Ci 

Courts ot justice, mint salaries and allowances, bounties, 234,937 19 

Allowance to members ot the royal family, pensions, Sec. 332,412 7 

Civil list of Scotland, - - - 113,170 4 

Other bounties ami pensions, and militia and deserters' warrants, 391,456 1 
Navy, ...... 21,996,6-24 9 

Ordnance, .... 3,404,527 11 

Army, - - - - - 29,469,520 10 

Remittances to other countries, Hanover, Austria, Prussia, and 

nine other powers, - - - 15,994,832 14 1 

Miscellaneous services at home and abroad, - 4,010,349 18 4 1-2 



5 3-4 





7 1-2 


4 1-4 


8 1-2 


11 1-2 


4 i-e 


11 


3 



118,872,813 15 11-2 
Deduct sums for Ireland, &e. - - 4,904 ,202 18 3 



Total expenditure of Great Britain, - - £113,968,610 16 10 1-2 



Now, as to the comparison between the expenditure of this 
government and of yours, I must speak of the latest period of 
which I have any knowledge of your expenditure ; and though 
you are in a state of war and of unprecedented expense, you 
must bear in mind that we are in a state of war also. I find an 
account of vour expenditure in Mr. Madison's speech of the "20th 
of September, 18 1 4, which, by the by, many persons here think 
wili be his last, except that which the Times newspaper supposes 
be will make at his exit from the world. Mr. Madison speaks 
thus on the subject of your finances : <; The moneys received 
into the treasury during the nine months, ending the 30lh of June 
last, amounted to thirty-two millions of dollars, of which eleven 
millions were the proceeds of the public revenue, and the remain- 
der derived from loans. The disbursements for public expeii- 
ditures, during the same period, exceed thirty-four millions of 
dollars, and left in the treasury, on the 1st of July, near five 
millions of dollars." 

Taking your expenditure, without fractions, then, it would be, 
for the last year, $ 47,550, 000, while ours was $ 155,374,443. 
So that our expenditure, exclusive of poor rates, tythes, and coun- 
ty and corporation government, is more than nine times as great 
as yours. The population of the two countries, leaving out our 
paupers, is, as 1 shall show by and by, nearly equal, the greater 
population being, however, I believe, on your side. The pau- 
pers must be left out, as you will perceive, because it is impossible 
that they can contribute, in any way whatever, towards the means 
of meeting this expenditure. 

Rut expenditure is of little importance when compared to receipts 
or taxes. Here it is that we touch close upon men's pockets. 
The means of expending consists in part of loans. These loans 
may, or may not, ever be paid off. You may, perhaps, pay them 
off by lands; we may pay them off by some yet unknown means. 
What we have to lool* at, in the most attentive manner, therefore, 












204 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

is the amount of the taxes ; because this is what the people really 
pay. 

The amount of our taxes, paid into the treasury during the last 
year, was 74,027,583/. Ms. 8£c/. We are very precise in the 
keeping of our accounts. According to Mr. Madison's statement, 
in his speech, the money paid into your treasury, during the last 
year, was $14,550,000. In dollars, our taxes amounted to 
296,110,335; which is rather more than twenty times the amount 
of your year's taxes. But you must bear in mind that there is a 
considerable difference between the amount collected, and the 
amount paid into our treasury. 

Amongst other deductions from this latter sum, there was the 
sum of 3,504,938/ lis. bd. deducted from the gross receipt, or 
collection, for the purpose of paying the ,( charges for ma- 
nagement ;" that is to say, for the purpose of paying the per- 
sons employed in the assessing, the supervising, the surveying, 
the inspecting, the collecting, (he receiving, the transmitting, &c. 
of money paid into the treasury. Now, 3,504,938/. lis. bd. is 
$14,019,754. So that the bare expense of the getting together of 
our taxes amounts, you see, to very nearly as much as the whole 
of your taxes raised upon you ; that is to say, if Mr. Madison's 
statement be correct. And suppose each of these persons, one 
with the other, to receive 50/. or $200 a year, here are wages for 
70,098 men constantly employed in the business of the taxes ; 
while, suppose you to pay your tax-gatherers at the same rate, 
you have only 2,504 persons constantly employed in this way. 

The poor rates form another item of English taxation, in addi- 
tion to the above ; and a very important item it is now become. 
If you do not know the nature of this tax, and of its application, it 
may be necessary to state, that this is a tax levied upon all house- 
holders and landholders, for the support of such persons as are too 
poor to support themselves. It is assessed and collected by per- 
sons appointed by the taxed people in each parish, called overseers 
of the poor ; but before they can proceed to collect any rate, 
they must have the approbation of a jusiice of the peace, who is, 
as they all are, appointed by the crown. In the distribution of 
this money, the overseers are again liable to the control of the 
justices of the peace ; for they may, upon the application of any 
pauper, order, without appeal, the overseers to relieve the said 
pauper, in any manner that they please. This, therefore, is a tax 
not paid into the treasury, but disposable under the jurisdiction, 
and at the discretion, of his majesty's justices of the peace. The 
office of overseer is performed without any pay. It is a duly, or 
service, which every taxed householder is liable to be compelled 
to execute. 

Now, then, as to the amount of this tax, which, you will observe, 
forms an addition to that of the taxes already noticed ; it was, in 
the year 1803, when the report was laid before parliament, 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 



205 



5,348,205/. For the last year I have only computation to guide ; 
but that assures me, that the nation paid in poor rates, last year, 
7,896,556/., or, $31,586,224; being more than twice the amount 
of all the taxes which you paid during the last year, if Mr. Madi- 
son's statement be correct. But that I may not expose myself to 
the risk of being charged with a wrong computation, I must first 
state, that no official account of this important matter has been 
laid before parliament since 1803; and that, therefore, lam forced 
to resort to computation, the grounds of which I will now explicitly 
state. I have the means of coming at the exact amount of the 
poor rates in Bishop's Waltham parish, where my farm lies, for 
the last year. This is a parish subject to no fluctuation of pros- 
perity; it has no manufactories in it; it has a small country town 
and a large tract of arable, meadow, wood, and waste land. There- 
fore, I may very fairly take the increase of the poor rates here as 
a criterion of the increase of the poor rates of the whole country, 
especially if we find, from the official reports, that the poor rates 
of this parish had, for nearly thirty years, up to 1803, kept a very 
nearly exact pace with the poor rates of the whole nation. There 
were three different periods at which the report of 1 803 took 
the poor rates of the whole nation, and, also, the poor rates of 
Bishop's Waltham parish ; and the statement was as follows, ob- 
serving, however, that, as to poor rates, we speak of only Eng- 
land and Wales, Scotland not being under the poor laws. 



England and Wales. 


Bishop's Waltham. 




In the year 


In the year 




1776, - £1,720,316 


1776, 


£58 


1784, - 2,167,749 


1784, 


670 


1803, - 5,447,205 


1803, 


1,595 



It is quite surprising to observe how exact are these propor- 
tions ; how regularly this parish kept pace, for twenty-seven 
years, with the whole nation in the increase of its poor rates. But, 
in order to leave no room for cavil on this head, the subject being 
one of the utmost importance, we will proportion this parish accord- 
ing to its population: had of paupers, in 1803, there being no 
account of the nation's number of paupers previous to 1803, and 
there being no likelihood that we shall ever see another, 



England and Wales. 
Population, - 8,872,980 

Paupers, - 1,256,357 

exclusive of persons in alms houses. 



Bishop's Waltham. 
Population, - 177.> 

Paupers, - 256 



Now, if you multiply the paupers by seven, in both instances, 
3 ou will find that they amount to nearly the whole of the popu- 
lation, making it appear that, in 1 803, there were nearly one pauper 
to every seven persons in the parish of Bishop's Waltham, as 
well as throughout England and Wales. It was said, in our news^ 



206 



Letters of William iHobbdt, Esq. 



papers, that the emperor of Russia, and the king of Prussia, ex- 
pressed their surprise at seeing no poor people in England. If 
this was true, it was clear that their majesties did not look in the 
right places. We now come to the result. The poor rates in 
Bishop's Waltham parish, instead of the 1,595/. to which they 
amounted in 1803, amounted last year to 2,355/. 1 8s. 6|d. as I 
know from the poor book now lying before me, and of which sum 
I myself paid more than 100/. or $400. If, therefore, this crite- 
rion be a good one, and such, I think, it cannot be denied to be; 
if, in 1803, Bishop's Waltham paid 1,595/., while England and 
Wales paid 5,348, :!0o/., England and Wales must, last year, have 
paid 7,896,556/., seeing that Bishop's Waltham paid, in the same 
year, 2,355/., throwing aside the shillings, pence, and farthings. 

I return, then, to my former statement that the poor rates alone 
of England and Wales, exclusive of Scotland, (where, however, 
there is something paid in support of the poor,) amounts to more 
than double the sum which was last year (a year of great expense) 
paid by the whole of the population of America into the treasury, 
in taxes of all sorts, direct and indirect. 

Then comes another question; namely, what is the relative po- 
pulation of the two countries ? I have not the account of your 
last census at hand. I think it made your total population amount 
to between seven and eight miflions. At this lime I cannot sup- 
pose ft to be less than eight millions. Take, then, the 5,348,205/. 
of poor rates, in 1803, observing that then there were 1,256,357 
paupers, and you will find that we must have now upwards of 
1,800,000 paupers, provisions being at th'i3 time as cheap, if not 
cheaper, than they were in 1803. Deduct, therefore, from the 
8,872/J80 (the population of England and Wales) the 1,800,000 
paupers, and tiien there are left to pay the 7,896,556/. of poor 
rates, only 7,072,980 persons, including women and children. 

The paying population, as to poor rates, is, at any rate, smaller 
than the population of your republic; and the sum paid exceeds, 
as I have before stated, twice the amount of the whole of the taxes 
of every sort which you paid last year into the treasury of the 
United States, if Mr. Madison's statement be correct. 

Turning towards another view of this interesting subject, we 
perceive that, if we exclude the paupers, as we rationally must, 
the poor rates alone amount to more than one pound sterling, or 
four dollars a head, on the whole of the population of England 
and Wales. Our poor rates alone amounted to this on the whole 
of our population ; while, according to Mr. Madison's account, 
the whole of the taxes of every sort paid into the treasury of the 
United States, do not amount to more than two dollars a head on 
your population, even supposing your population to be now little 
more than seven millions. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 2(tf 

The tythes form another part of our taxes. I do not mean to 
speak of them, as some most loyal men do, as being peculiarly 
odious ; or, indeed, as being odious at all, either in their nature, or 
the mode of their collection, in which latter I have never expe- 
rienced any thing severe or vexatious; nor do I believe that, as far 
as the clergy are the owners of the tythes, (for they do not own 
more than about the half of them,) their rate, or collection, is often 
severe, or unfair, or even troublesome. Still, however, the tythes 
which Arthur Young, in 179*2, estimated at 5,000,000/. in Eng- 
land and Wales, must be looked upon as so much money raised upon 
the land ; and certainly it would not be raised if there were no esta- 
blished church, no state religion. In short, the tythes, as far as 
the clergy are the receivers, must be looked upon as so much 
money received and expended by the government ; so much mo- 
' ney given by the government to a description of persons eminent- 
ly calculated to repay it in support. Nevertheless, I will not in- 
I elude the tythes among the taxes of the nation. Lord Sheffield, 
[indeed; he who predicted in his book, published in lTliiJ, that 
I you would soon wish to return to your allegiance, which, as he 
I made it out, would be found necessary to your very existence as 
I a people ; that same Lord Sheffield, in a speech to a meeting of 
wool growers, lately reckoned tythes among the causes of our far- 
mers' being unable to maintain a competition with those of 
neighbouring countries. I do not give so much weight to tythes ; 
but, still, it must not be forgotten ; and when a report to the house 
of commons, made in 15503, states the whole rental of the kingdom 
of Great Britain at twenty-eight millions, you will perceive that if 
we take the tythes at Mr. Arthur Young's estimate, of 1792, the 
tythes amount to more than a sixth of the whole rental. Indeed, 
they must amount to a great deal more ; because the tythe con- 
sists of a tenth of the whole of the produce of a farm ; and, of 
course, it is a tenth of the rent, the labour, the taxes, the capital, 
the manure, and all other outgoings ; and of the profits into the 
bargain. So that the tythes of the produce cannot, I should sup- 
pose, be less than a fourth of the rental; and, of course, that they 
amount to about 7,000,000/. in England and Wales, at this time; 
Scotland paying no tythes. But, then, it must be observed, that 
the church does not receive more than the half of this sum. The 
rest is the property of lay-persons. It is, in fact, private proper- 
ty, and is sold, or rented, as other private property is. Upon 
the subject of tythes, therefore, I shall not enter into any 
comparison between your country and ours. All the world 
knows that you have no tythes, and no compulsory payments, on 
account of religion of any description ; all the world knows that 
the Episcopalians, the Quakers, the Catholics, the Presbyterians, 
the Baptists, the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the Moravians, the 
rUir.kard*. the Swenfeklers. the Seceder=, the Unitarians, the 



208 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

Swedenburgers, and many other descriptions of Christians, each 
condemning the opinions of all the others ; together with Jews and. 
Deists, who laugh at the whole of them ; have their assemblies 
in your country ; and that any one of them, or even of Atheists, 
may become your president, vice-president, or a member of (he 
congress, without any question being asked him with regard to his 
religion ; while it is equally well known, that no man can be a ma- 
gistrate, or fill any office of trust, in England, unless he first give a 
test of his being a member of the established church, the head of 
which church is the king, who has the absolute appointment of all 
the bishops and deans, and of the greater part of the -beneficed 
priests. These facts being merely mentioned, I need add no- 
thing further on the subject, except that we have many persons 
punished in England for publishing works on the subject of reli- 
gion, while yon have no such punishments; and we have recently 
seen a man imprisoned for eighteen months, and put in the pillory, 
for republishing a work here which had been first published in 
your country. Which system is best, and which worst, it is not 
my present object to inquire. My business, upon this occasion, 
is merely to state facts which no one can deny, leaving it to the 
reader to form opinions and draw conclusions. 

We will now, then, relurn to the taxes, which we will take in 
the aggregate, on both sides of the Atlantic ; and then, taking 
the population of each country, we shall see how much we pay 
per head, and how much you pay per head. There must be a 
little confusion here, in our part of the statement, because we 
have regular poor rates, by law, in England and Wales, while 
Scotland has no such law, though there are collections there also 
for the support of the poor. This, however, cannot be accurately 
come at. I will, therefore, leave it wholly out, and look upon 
the poor rates of England and Wales as raised upon the whole of 
Great Britain. I will here leave out the shillings, pence, and 
farthings. 

GREAT BRITAIN. 

Amount of taxe9 paid into the treasury, - - £74,027,583 

Paid to the tax-gatherers for collection or management, 3,504,93* 

Amount of poor taxes, ... 7,896,556 

Total, £85,4 9,07r 

or, 
§341,715,308 



But now, in taking the aggregate of your taxes, you will see 
the necessity of my including those which are raised upon the 
people in the several stales for the support of the several slate 
governments, which taxes, of course, form an addition to the 
taxes paid to the general government of the United States. My 
materials for ascertaining the amount of these state taxes is not 



Letters of William €obbett, Esq. 209 

quite so perfect as I could wish. Yet I have means to do it to 
the satisfaction of any one whose object is that of arriving at truth. 
In 1 805, Benjamin Davies, of Philadelphia, a man of great research 
and of great accuracy, published, in his " New System of Geo- 
graphy,'' an account of the revenues and expenses of eight of the 
states ; correct information from the other states, on this head, not 
being apparently at his command, or within his reach. This, 
however, is quite sufficient for our purpose ; for no reasonable 
man will suppose that these eight states, and those the principal 
ones, do not furnish a fair criterion whereon to found an estimate 
of the whole. His account stands as follows, in dollars and cents, 
or hundredths of a dollar. 









Taxes per head on the popu 


STATES. 


TAXES. 




lation of the state. 




Dollars. 






Cents. 


Vermont, 


10,800 




• 


12 


Massachusetts, 


116,000 




• 


21 


Connecticut, 


19,5S4 




. 


7 


New-York, 


Rich in 


public 


funds, &c. 




New-Jersey, 


27,000 




- 


12 


Pennsylvania, 


397,86.3 




- 


76 


Maryland, 


5o,000 




. 


16 


Virginia, 


377,703 




. 


43 


South-Carolina, 


70,000 




Average, 


35 




8) «13 




26 5-8 



It appears from Benjamin Davies' account, that these taxes, or, 
rather, these resources, arise, in many cases, from the interest of 
stock, of which the states are the owners, and which make part 
of the public debt in America. In other cases, they arise from 
the sale of lands belonging to the states. He represents New- 
York state to be owner of 2.000,000 of dollars in stock, and to 
hoid numerous shares in canals, Sec! &c. But I shall suppose 
that the whole of this sum is raised in taxes upon the people, and 
paid out of their pockets. It will then come to this, that each 
inhabitant of the American republic pays, in this way, and on 
this account, 26 5-8 cents, or hundredths of a dollar. 

You have also, in the c;reat towns, some poor to assist. I am 
quite in the dark upon this head, except as far as observation of 
some years ago can guide me. This item, therefore, I will take 
at a guess ; and, if I allow that the poor cost nearly as much as 
the state governments, no one on this side of the Writer, at any 
rate, can complain of the estimate. I therefore take the state 
taxes, including poor taxes, at 50 cents, oi half a dollar a head, 
upon the whole of your population. I know that you will say 
that this is a monstrous over rate as to your poor taxes. But I 
am resolved not to be complained of on the other side. As to 



27 



210 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

road rates, turnpikes, watching and lighting, and paving and 
watering, of cities and tonus, I do not noiice these in either 
country, seeing that they are for the immediate benefit of those who 
pay them. 

We will now return to our comparison between the distribution, 
per head, of our taxes and of yours. 

Our year's taxes, including poor taxes, we find amounting to 
341,71 6,;308 dollars. Our population in Great Britain, in 1803, 
was as follows : 

England and Wales, ..... 8,872,980 

Scotland, ...... 1,007,760 

Army and navy, ..... 469,188 

Convicts in the hulks, ..... 1,410 



Total, 10,951,338 
Deduct army and Davy, - - - - - 469,188 



10,482,150 
Deduct convicts on board the hulks, .... i,il0 



10,4SO,740 
Deduct paupers, ..... 1,800,000 



8,6S0,74O 



I make no deduction for prisoners in our jails, whether for 
crimes or debts ; though, as I shall, with sorrow, have to state, 
by and by, these are worthy of very serious notice, even in the 
comparative view which we are now making. I suppose that I 
shall not be contradicted when I say, that it is impossible, upon 
any rational ground, to include soldiers, sailors, convicts, and 
paupers, amongst the payers of taxes ; and that, therefore, the 
deductions which I have made will be allowed to be necessary to 
the correctness of the comparison. But to get rid of the chance 
of a cavil being raised ; to put it out of the power of any human 
being to object to my basis, I will distribute our taxes amongst 
the whole of the population, and will even take that population at 
its amount previous to the enormous emigration of natives, and 
re emigration of foreigners, which the peace on the continent of 
Europe has produced. Taking the whole of the population of 
Great Britain, therefore, at 10,951,338, it appears that, for each 
person, old and young, male and female, there were taxes paid 
last year, to the amount of thirty-one dollars and twenty cents ; 
(throwing away a fraction ;) or, in sterling money of England, 
77. 16s. This, you will observe, is for every soul, whether pau- 
per, soldier, sailor, debtor, convict, or other criminal. 

On your side I will take the population, of every description, 
at only 7,500,000, though it is notoriously much more. Your 
United States' taxes, last year, amounted to $14,550,000, which, 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 21 1 

distributed amongst your 7,500,000 people, imposes upon each 
a little less than $2; and if we add the taxes of the state 
governments, and the largely estimated poor taxes as above, 
each person in your republic paid last year, including every spe- 
cies of tax, the sum of $2 50, or 12s. 6d. of our money, while, as 
we have just seen, there was paid in Great Britain, for every soul, 
including soldiers, sailors, paupers, debtors, convicts and criminals 
in prison, the sum of $31 20 ; or 71. 6s. of our money. 

Really (for I must break out a little here) Mr. Madison does 
appear io have boasted betimes of the fortitude of your people ; 
of the cheerfulness with which they bear the burdens which the 
war impose,s on them ; of their giving the taxes, direct and indi- 
rect, with promptness and alacrity ! Let him, before he talks in 
Ibis way, put the people into our state of trial. Let him try the 
whole population, man, woman, and child, pauper, soldier, sailor, 
debtor, convict and criminal prisoner, with thirty-one dollars and 
twenty cents each, instead of two paltry dollars and a half; and then 
let him talk, if he likes, of their fortitude and patriotism, Our 
lords and gentlemen, in our honourable houses, talk, indeed, with 
good grounds, of our unexampled patience under our burdens. 
This compliment, which parliaments in former times seldom be- 
stowed on our and your forefathers, and which, to acknowledge 
the truth, thej r as seldom merited, is fully due to us. But, really, 
Mr. Madison has begun a lit lie too soon to compliment his fellow- 
citizens on their quality of bearing burdens. Their twelve and- 
sixpenny patience will be thought very little of on this side of 
the wate--, where we bear, taking paupers, soldiers, and all, eleven 
tijnes as much without even a whisper in the way of complaint. 
There was, indeed, a few years ago, a man by the name of Cartor, 
in Staffordshire, who published an article which was understood 
to contain a censure on his majesty's commissioners of property 
tax in that county ; but he was soon led to feel sorrow for his con- 
duct; and, since that, the country has not been disgraced by one 
single soul found to fellow the evil example, or to be in the like 
case offending. Mr. Madison says, that his fellow citizens will 
proudly bear their burdens. But can they bear them so proudly 
as we have borne, and still bear, ours ? Has he heard of the bon- 
fires, the ringing of bells, the roasting of sheep and of oxen, the 
feasts, the balls, and the singing parties, which took place whilst 
the kings, our friends in the war, were here last summer ? Has 
he heard of the joy at the sight of the exhibition in the Green 
Park, and that of the sham naval fight on the Serpentine River, 
which formed so apt a representation of Lake Champlain and 
its outlet ? Mr. Madison must come hither (and the Times news- 
paper expects to have him here) before he can form the most dis- 
tant idea of the extent ami value of our pat ience and loyalty. The 
sum which one good farm pays Here, in the variotia kinds of taxes, 



212 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

would, if attempted to be collected in America, set a whole town- 
ship, if not a whole county, of your grudging republicans in muti- 
ny ; and compel the magistrate to call out the horse soldiers, if 
there were any at his command. Let us hear no more, therefore, 
of Mr. Madison's twelve-and-sixpenny patience. Let us hear no 
more of his boasts of the fortitude of his republicans, until their 
fortitude makes somewhat of a nearer approach towards ours. 

If you will excuse this digression, into which, you will confess, 
I was so naturally led, not to say dragged, I will now return to 
my statement of facts, proceeding next to a view of the crimes and 
punishments in this country. 

As to our criminal code, you, who are a lawyer, know full as 
much about it as I do, except as far as relates to the experience \u 
cases of libel- It is merely of the number and description of 
crimes and punishments that I am now about to speak : and, as in 
other cases, I shall not deal in vague surmises or general observa- 
tions, but appeal to authentic reports, and build my statements 
on the unerring rules of arithmetic. Sir Samuel Romilly, who has 
for many years been labouring to effect a softening of our criminal 
code, caused, in the year 1811, an account to be laid before par- 
liament of the crimes and punishments, as far as they came before 
the judges, for several years preceding- Owing to some cause, 
with which I am not acquainted, the account came no lower down 
than the year 1809; and it extended no further than England and 
Wales, leaving out Scotland, where, as I am told, there are in fact 
but very few crimes and punishments, though the sheriffs and 
other officers of justice in that country are pretty expensive, and 
are paid out of what is called fhe civil list. The summary of the 
account, of which I have spoken above, is as follows : 

Persons. 
Committed for trial, • .... 2721 



Convicted, .... 

Sentenced to suffer death, 

■ ■ to be transported, 
"■ ■■ -'■ ■ to be imprisoned, whipped, fined, &c. 
Actually put to death, • • 



1573 

S72 

401 

809 

57 



Beside these, you will observe, there are all the persons who 
were tried at the quarter sessions in the several counties ; that is 
to say, the sessions held by the justices of the peace, four times in 
every year, where as many of the justices as choose to attend form 
the court, having one of their own body for chairman. At these 
sessions the offences of a less heinous nature are examined into and 
punished. But the justices can sentence to imprisonment, whip- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 2 1 3 

ping, fine, and, I believe, they can transport. This is the great 
court lor the trial of persons charged with thefts of an inferior or- 
der; and, I should suppose, that the number of criminals brought 
before these courts is twice as great as that of the criminals who 
are reserved for trial before the judges, who go into some counties 
but once in the year, and into none, except Middlesex, more than 
twice ; whereas, the court of quarter sessions is held every three 
months. However, as I cannot speak here from any authentic 
document, I shall leave this as a thing whereon for you to exercise 
your judgment. 

As to any comparison on this point, between our country and 
yours, I am wholly destitute of any authentic document, relative 
to America, touching crimes and punishments. I can, however, 
speak as far as my own observation went. I lived in Philadelphia 
about eight years, wiih every disposition to find fault with every 
thing that I saw, or heard of, that was amiss. During that time, 
I never heard of any person, except in one instance, being tried 
for his or her life ; I never heard of a murder, a highway robbery, 
or of a house being broken open ; I never heard of an execution 
of death on any person, except (the instance above alluded to) of 
three men hanged, on the banks of the Delaware, for piracy and 
murder; these men were foreigners; and such was the horror of 
an execution, even in such a case, that the executioner was 
obliged to be disguised in such a way that it was impossible that 
any one should recognise either his person or features, being 
brought to the spot in a carriage, under an escort of constables, 
and taken away in a similar manner, so as to make it almost im- 
possible for him to become publicly known. Philadelphia, at the 
time I speak of, contained about 70,000 inhabitants. 

It is, as I observed before, impossible to come at any exact state- 
ment on this subject, in the way of comparison ; but a few facts, 
notorious on the two sides of the water respectively, will serve to 
aid you greatly in forming your opinions as to this matter. Here 
we have laws to guard our turnip fields from robbery, and very 
necessary they are ; for without them there is no man in any part of 
the country who could depend on having the use of his crop even 
of that coarse and bulky article. To steal corn out of a field af- 
ter it is cut, is punished with death by our laws; and if we had 
fields of Indian corn, as you have, which is a delightful food for 
several weeks before it is ripe, I cannot form an idea of the means 
that would be necessary to preserve it from being carried away. 
As to poultry, no man in England has the smallest expectation of 
being able ever to taste what he raises, except he carefully locks 
it up in the night, and has dogs to guard the approaches to the 
hen-roost. In America, at within ten or twelve miles of Philadel- 
phia, it is a common practice of the farmers to turn the flocks of 
turkeys into the ivoods in the latter end of August ; there to re« 



214 Letters of fVilliam Cobbeit, Esq, 

main until towards winter, when they return half fat. A farmer 
in England would no more think of doing (his than he would think of 
depositing his purse in any of the public foot-paths across his 
fields. In order to preserve their fences, the fanners sometimes 
resort to this experiment: they bore holes into the stoutest of the 
stakes, which sustain their hedges ; put gunpowder into those 
holes ; then drive in a piece of wood very tightly upon the pow- 
der; so that the stolen hedge, in place of performing its office of 
boiling the kettle, dashes it, and all around it, to pieces. J his 
mode of preserving fences I first heard of at Alrcsford, a town 
about twelve miles distance from Botley ; and though it certainly 
does appear, at first sight, a very cruel one, what is a man to do ? 
The thieves are so expert as to set detection at defiance; and 
there is nothing but his fences between him and ruin. 1 have 
known a man who assured me, that, by the stealing of his hedge 
in the month of March, and letting into his wheat land the flocks 
from the commons, he lost more than 300/. in one night and part of 
the ensuing day. A few weeks ago I myself had a^rre, by which 
I lost a couple of barns, and some other buildings. At this fire a 
numerous crowd was assembled, many of whom came for the pur- 
pose of rendering assistance ; but one man was detected, while the 
fire was yet raging, stealing the lead and iron work of a pump, 
fulfilling the old saying, that nothing is too hot or too heavy for a 
thief; and it required the utmost of my resolution and exertion, 
aided by three sons, and a half a dozen resolute and faithful ser- 
vants, to preserve, during the night and next day, (which was 
Sunday,) the imperishable and portable part of the property from 
being carried away. I will just add upon this subject, as an in- 
stance of the baseness of our press, that the Times newspaper 
published, upon this occasion, a paragraph, stating that I had most 
ungratefully driven away " the honest rustics" who had kindly 
come to my assistance. It is very true that I did drive the 
" honest rustics" away; but I succeeded in putting a stop to their 
thefts, which would, I verily believe, have been nearly as inju- 
rious as the fire. Since the fire happened upon my premises, a 
gentleman, who had a similar accident some [ew years ago, has 
assured me, that almost every article of iron was stolen from his 
premises. It is notorious that, in London, the thieving forms a 
very considerable part of every such calamity. But the thing which 
better than any other bespeaks the nature of our situation, in this 
respect, is the exhibition of notices on the top of garden walls, and 
of other fences, menacing those who enter with the danger oi 
death from man traps and spring guns. Peter Pindar has im 
moi talized these by introducing them into a poem, where he ludi 
crously represents the king as intent upon "catching his living! 
subjects by the legs." But he must have well known, that, with-J 
out them, neither king nor subject could possess the produce of < 






Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 215 

warden. Sometimes (he traps themselves are hoisted up upon a 
sort of gibbet, in the day lime, in order to inspire greater tenor ; 
and it is only a few months ago that we had an account of a man 
being actually killed by a spring gun, in a nocturnal expedition in 
a garden at Mitcham. Beside these, we are infested by gangs of 
itinerant thieves, called gypsies. The life of these people very 
much resembles that of the savages whom I have seen on the bor- 
ders of the river St. John, in New-Brunswick ; except that the 
latter gain their food by hunting and fishing, and the former by 
theft. The gypsies have no setlled home; no house, or hut, or 
place of dwelling. They have asses, which carry themselves, 
their children, their kettle, and their means of erecting tents, and. 
which tents are precisely like those of the, North American sa- 
vages. The nights they employ in thieving. Sheep, pigs, poul- 
try, corn, roots, fruit; nothing comes amiss to them. \Vhatthey 
steal in one place, they spend in another; and thus they proceed 
all over the country. They commit acts of murder, and theft, 
and arson, innumerable. The members of this moving community 
are frequently hanged, or transported; but still the troops of vaga- 
bonds exist; and, as far as I am able to judge, are as numerous as 
they were when I was a boy. But still the great evil, in this view 
of the subject, is the want of honesty in the labouring class, to what- 
soever cause that evil is to be ascribed. Those writers on rural 
affairs, who have urged the employing of threshing machines for 
corn, have counted, amongst the greatest of their advantages, that 
they protected the farmer against the thefts of the thresher. Va- 
rious are the ways in which corn is stolen by those who thresh it; 
but I will content myself wilh one, the information with regard to 
which I derived from a respectable neighbour. He perceived 
that his thresher brought a large wooden bottle with him to work 
every day. Being winter time, he could not conceive what 
should make the man so very thirdly. He watched him : 
never saw him drink. At last he accosted him in his way home, 
and after some altercation, insisted upon examining the bottle, which 
he found to be full of wheat. Thus was this man taking away three 
gallons of wheat every week, which, at that time, was not worth 
less than six shillings. It was this, I believe, and this alone, which 
made my neighbour resolve to use a threshing machine. 

Such is by no means an overcharged view of our situation in 
this respect. Of the causes which have led to it I shall not speak ; 
indeed, I do not know that I am competent. That it is not owing 
to a want of penal laws is very certain. I am unable to say whe- 
ther your country, at this time, be better or worse situated as to 
i this matter. At any rate, I shall enable you to make the com- 
parison ; and as such comparisons, if clearly and candidly made, 
might be of great use to the people of both countries, I think it is 
not too much for me to hope that you, in the public manner of 



216 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

which I am giving you an example, will communicate the compa- 
rison to me. But, if you can do it, let us have authentic docu- 
ments. It would be perfectly easy to obtain a year's account of 
all the commitments, convictions, and sentences in your republic. 
I should not fear executing such a task with an expense of twenty 
dollars ; and, as the execution of it would give (o the world a piece 
of the most interesting and most valuable information, I will not 
fear that you, who have all the means in your hands, will decline 
to undertake it. If you do undertake if, [ know that you will 
execute it with a strict adherence to truth; and, if so executed, 
it must be productive of great good. Both countries must profit 
from it, especially if peace should happily be restored between 
them. 

As to the mode of living in this country, compared to the 
mode of living in your republic, I cannot in this letter enter in- 
to the inquiry, which would take up more room than I have at 
present, and also much more time. It is, however, a most inte- 
resting subject ; because it speaks, at once, to the great object for 
which civil society was framed ; namely, the happiness of the peo- 
ple. Even now, however, I cannot refrain from giving you a no- 
tion of the manner in which our labourers live. 1 am, strange as 
it may seem, enabled to appeal to parliamentary authority here 
also. There is now before me a report of a committee of the 
house of commons on the subject of the corn laws. This commit- 
tee report the evidence of certain persons examined by them ; 
and, amongst the rest, of a great landholder in Wiltshire, named 
Bennett, who, upon being asked how much a labourer and his fa- 
mily ought to have to live upon, answered : " We calculate that 
every person in a labourer's family should have, per week, the 
price of a gallon loaf, and threepence over for feeding and clothing, 
exclusive of house rent, sickness, and casual expenses." This 
report was ordered by the house of commons to be printed, on 
the "26th of July last. 

Now, " a gallon loaf "' weighs, according to law, 81b. lOoz. 
avoirdupois weight. This is the allotment for seven days for one 
person; but, then as ^ou will perceive, Mr. Bennett and his 
neighbours allow threepence, or five cents a week more, or 
suppose a cent per day more, for feeding and clothing. The 
particulars of the feeding and clothing that can be had for three 
pence per week, or thirteen shillings a year, it would, perhaps, 
be difficult to ascertain, without immediate application to Mr. 
Bennett; and as that is out of my power, I must leave these par- 
ticulars to be come at by your powers of divination; adding, how- 
ever, that as far as my observation has reached, Mr. Bennett's ac- 
count appears to have been tolerably correct. I am, with sincere 
esteem, your friend, N Wm. Cobbett. 

Botley, England, November 15, 1814, 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 217 



STATE OF THE NATIQN. 

Mr. Cobbett, 

So, sir, there is sad news from America ! We are not 
merely repulsed with loss and slaughter, by a set of ragamuffins 
without red coats ; but we also lose our brave, our gallant, our hu- 
mane, and generous officers. As to the common meu being killed, 
that is nothing ; they ?j-e only numbered, not named ; whereas our 
officers are always the very best of their species ; so that the Ame- 
ricans, in shooting them, are guilty of great presumption, beside 
downright murder, and a most grievous loss it is to Britain. The 
shooting a few more of our officers, by those plaguy smock-frock- 
ed riflemen, may also prove a material protraction to our recolo- 
nizing the continent of America. I should, therefore, be of opi- 
nion, that our officers ought to disguise themselves as they did du- 
ring the last war ; for these impudent riflemen are so accustomed 
to shoot their wild turkeys flying, that it will be impossible for a 
single officer to escape, if they once recognise him. 

This consideration alone is sufficient to compel the ministry to 
leave America unconquered, and patch up a peace ; unless, indeed, 
our interest in the now sitting congress of the legitimate proprie- 
tors of the human race, be so great as to cause it to be enacted, 
that, henceforward, in warfare, it shall be against the law of nations 
to fire at, wound, or slay, any officer bearing his Britannic majesty's 
commission. But while we thus complain of the passing events 
abroad, let us endeavour to remedy some of the abuses at home. 
I-t is an undeniable fact, that we groan under an immense load of 
taxes, which scarcely leave to the many the means of procuring 
the necessaries of life. We exhibit to the astonished world the 
spectacle of a free nation, paying double the sum in taxes of any 
other country, under the most arbitrary and despotic government, 
ajid our protecting parliament loads free-born Britons with heavier 
burthens than all the ukases of an autocrat imposes on the servile 
Russian. Yet a very great proportion of these taxes go towards 
the support of those who govern ; and without entering at present 
into a disquisition as to the mode or profusion in which the mem- 
bers of, and adherents to, government are paid, we must insist 
that a certain indispensable duty attaches to them in return for the 
large salaries they receive from the public, and that to the public 
they are amenable, who, at the same time, are competent to judge 
whether that indispensable duty be neglected or inadequately 
performed. 

With the public also a power to remove, or punish, exists ; 
and, therefore, all endeavours to recall such servants back to their 

28 






213 Letters of William Cobbett, Ksq. 

duty, and all inflictions of punishment for a departure therefrom, 
are not only strictly justifiable and highly laudable, but, in fact, 
the bounden duty of each individual towards his country. Every 
such individual would himself depart from the line of justice, and 
become a traitor, were he, from self-interested motives, tamely 
to submit to flagrant abuses in the government, and suffer them to 
be handed down to posterity. This rule fairly laid down, it be- 
hooves us to make a strict inquiry into our present ruinous state, 
and to scrutinize the measures which have brought us into it. 
Next, let us examine whether the constitutional axiom, that the 
king can do no wrong, extends to his cabinet, or even to parlia- 
ment. Then, whether a nation is bound to sit down contented 
with its wrongs, because a white-washing bill, brought in by mem- 
bers of such cabinet, may have been passed by a parliament, many 
of whose members, if not principals, have been accessaries to the 
abuses in favour of which the indemnity bill was required — a par- 
liament, who -may already have passed bills encroaching upon 
those liberties they had sworn to defend — a parliament, where it 
is probable placemen and pensioners abounded, and where such 
may have had the traitorous insolence to advocate corruption. 

To begin with our present situation : After a twenty years 
murderous, and every way ruinous, war, we are at peace,/or the 
moment, with the continent of Europe, but we are still plunged in 
a savage and destructive hostility with America. During our 
twenty years continental war, much blood has been shed, while, 
excepting a few individuals, who, by contracts and commissions, 
have amassed fortunes, general ruin has ensued, an immense na- 
tional debt has accumulated, and all our gold has left the country. 
The concomitants of this are, a stagnation of trade, a rivalship of 
our manufactures, an impossibility of paying taxes; an enormous 
increase of paupers, and a ruinous paper currency. But peace, 
it was expected, would have restored our commerce and diminish- 
ed our taxes. Instead of which, more taxes will be wanted, in 
whatever shape they may be imposed, to bring up the arrears of 
the war expenditure ; and, in order to engage the people to pay 
further demands without murmuring, the contest with America is 
kept up; while peace with France, instead of augmenting the peo- 
ple's resources, has only furnished the superior classes, and in- 
deed all those above daily labour, with an opportunity of emigra- 
ting, and retiring from this land of taxes, to various parts of the 
continent, where they may live, not only reasonably, but peace- 
ably, without the hourly dread of being murdered in their houses 
by disbanded soldiers and sailors. 

These marauders, however, having been taught the trade of 
murder and plunder, we ought to bear no hatred against them, if, 
when we no longer want their gallant aid, they, as their only 
means of subsistence, set up for themselves, and practise indivi- 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 219 

dually such acts as they performed collectively, and upon which our 
highest praises have been bestowed. Peace, instead of augment- 
ing the people's resources, is now opening their eyes, is now bring- 
ing them to their senses ; they find that all Europe has now rival- 
led us in our manufactures, or prohibits their introduction ; and, 
while this takes place abroad, they experience at home, in the 
price of the necessaries of life, that forestalling and monopoly have 
seized on every article ; while the waste lands, instead of being 
given to the poor, have been universally appropriated to the rich, 
and the quantity of land thereby thrown into cultivation, instead of 
having the effect of lowering its price, has only encouraged the 
landholders to rack-rent their tenants. 

Thus, then, the industrious part of the community, owing to the 
heavy taxes, the decay of trade, and the existing monopoly, have 
no alternative at home but starvation as a reward for their labour.; 
a work house as a retreat, if disabled by sickness or age ; and Ihe 
gallows, if they dare practise, in retail, what their superiors are 
guilty of in wholesale. They enjoy not even the privilege of the 
spaniel, who has the liberty of yelping when ill treated ; if a man 
complains, he is instantly deemed seditious, and punished for bis 
temerity. In my n§xt I shall endeavour to point out a radical 
cure for these evils. 

ARISTIDES. 



AMERICAN WAR. 

The Times newspaper, which was one of the loudest clamour- 
ers for this war, now observes, rt with deep regret, that it has 
lingered on for so many months without being distinguished by 
any memorable stroke." If the inflammatory and malicious writer 
of that paper already experiences disappointment, what will he 
experience during the months, yea, and, perhaps, the years of this 
war, which are yet to come ? He, when urging on the nation to 
this enterprise, told them, with the utmost confidence, that in a 
Jew weeks after war should be commenced, " the boasted American 
navy would be annihilated." Not only has that navy not been 
annihilated, but it has very much increased. It has annihilated 
some hundreds of our merchant ships, and has defeated several 
of our ships of war, some of which, after victory over them, 
gained in the most wonderful manner, it has added to its own 
number. It is said, that we are building ships to carry 64 guns, 
for the express purpose of combating the American frigates. 
Ours, it seems, are to be called frigates also. This is to avoid 
the awkwardness of acknowledging that our frigates are not able to 
cope with American frigates. Now, if it should happen that one 



220 Lelters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

of these new " frigates" of ours is beaten and captured by an 
American frigate, what will thqn be said ? For my part, were it 
with me to carry on the war, 1 would, after what has passed, re- 
sort to no such perilous expedient as this, but would, at once, 
send ships of the line against those formidable frigates, without 
making any apology for so doing. Before the war began, not a 
word were we told about the frigates. The editors of the Times 
and the Courier were only impatient that these frigates should 
meet ours upon the sea. They said nothing about their stout 
decks, and their heavy cannon, and their " great big balls." 
But the moment that the Americans beat and captured one of our 
frigates with one of theirs, then we heard these editors, and eyen 
the " undaunted sons of Neptune," garbed in blue and gold, ex- 
claiming against the size of the American frigates, and the number 
of their crews ! We should have thought of all this before we 
talked of annihilating the American navy in a few week*. The 
merchants and underwriters are now petitioning the lords of the 
admiralty and the Prince Regent to protect them more effectually 
against this "contemptible American navy," which, it seems, 
has already destroyed their property to the amount of millions, 
and some of the ship3 of which are said to blockade, in some 
sort, part of our harbours in England and Ireland, and are cap- 
turing our ships within the sight of land. These gentlemen should 
have petitioned against the war* So far from that, many of them 
were eager for the war ; and do they think that they are to enjoy 
the gratification of seeing the American towns knocked down, 
without paying some little matter for it? That the admiralty are 
employing a great many ships and sailors in this war, our next 
year's taxes and loans will fully convince us ; but numerous as 
their ships and sailors are, they are not, and cannot be, sufficient 
to cover all the ocean. 

The farmers, and landholders, and fundholders, are sighing 
for the repeal of taxes ; but how are they justified in this wish, 
when it is well known that, to carry on the war, taxes are abso- 
lutely necessary ; and when it is also well known that those per- 
sons were, in general, anxious for the war? Some of them want 
war to prevent their produce from falling in price ; others liked 
peace with France well enough ; but, then, they wished " to give 
the Yankees a drubbing" Therefore, if, to keep up the price 
of produce, and to give the Yankees a drubbing, taxes are want- 
ed, with wnat decency can these persons expect that taxes will 
be taken off? Do we obtain any thing that we want without pay- 
ing for it, in some way or other ? If v/e want food, or raiment, or 
houses, or pleasure, do we not expect to pay for them ? Can we 
go to see a play or a puppet-show without money ? Why, then, 
are we to expect to see the greater pleasure of seeing the Yankees 
drubbed, without paying for that too ? The public seem very 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 22 1 

impatient to see the drubbing begin. The Times and the Courier 
have been endeavouring to entertain them for a long; while, and 
until they, as well as the audience, appear exhausted. But is it 
not reasonable that the public should, in this case, as well as in 
all others, put down their money previously to the drawing up of 
the curtain ? Tn a year or two, perhaps, we shall see the drama 
commence in good earnest. But is it not enough to be amused 
with a little dancing and tumbling on the outside before we have 
paid our money ? " Send ! send away," says the eager editor of 
the Times, " send away a force to crush them at once !" But 
not a word does he say about the taxes necessary to pay for the 
sending and keeping up of such a force. 

Our government is composed of wonderfully clever men ; but 
they are not clever enough to make soldiers walk upon the waters 
over the Atlantic, nor to enact, at a word, loaves and fishes tb 
sustain them after their arrival. To be able to send that "over- 
whelming force," of which the Times speaks, the government 
must have money ; and, as in all other cases, they must have 
the money first. In short, it is unreasonable in the extreme to 
expect the war in America to be attended with any very signal 
result, until we have liberally paid two or three years of taxes. 
The assertion is again made, that the American ships are manned 
principally with English, Irish, and Scotch. I find this assertion 
in the Morning Chronicle of the 6th instant. If this were true, 
as I hope it is not, what a pleasant and honourable fact this war 
would have brought to light ? No other than this : that many of 
our seamen, our "gallant tars," the " undaunted sons of Neptune," 
not only have no dislike to the Americans, but actually have run 
the risk of being hanged, drawn and quartered, for the sake of 
fighting in the American service against their own country ! 

If the world believe these accounts, what must the world think 
of us ? During the long war in which France was engaged, no 
Frenchmen were ever found in arms against their king and coun- 
try. Some of them, indeed, embodied themselves under foreign 
banners to fight, as they pretended, at least, for their country, 
and against those whom they called the usurpers of its govern- 
ment. But, if these accounts be true, our countrymen have volun- 
tarily gone into the American service to fight against their coun- 
try, that country being under the legitimate sway of the glorious 
and beloved house of Brunswick ! The origin of these accounts, 
so disgraceful to the country, is, probably, the reluctance which 
our naval officers have to confess defeat at the hands of those 
Yankees whom we were so desirous to see drubbed. To avoid 
this painful acknowledgment, it has been asserted, that we have 
not been beaten by the Yankees, but by our own brave country- 
men. But here, again, a difficulty arises : for how comes it to 
pass that our own brave countrymen have more success on board 



222 Letters of milium Cobbelt, Esq. 

Yankee ships than on board of our own heart of oak 1 How cornea 
it to pass that, the men on both sides being precisely of the same 
race and education, those in the Yankee ships should beat those 
in " the wooden walls of Old England V It has been observed, 
that they fight more desperately, knowing that they fight with a 
halter about their necks. What an aspersion on " the sons of 
Neptune !" As if the sons of Neptune, the gallant jack tars of 
Old England, wanted a halteV around their necks, and the gallows 
and executioner's knife before their eyes, to make them do more 
in battle than they are ready to do for the sake of their king and 
country, and from a sentiment of honour ! This is, really, giving 
a crue! stab to the character of our sailors ; but such is the sorry 
malignity of those who publish hese accounts of treasonable prac- 
tices, that they entirely overlook these obvious inferences, in their 
anxiety to get rid of the supposition that any thing praiseworthy 
belongs to the character of the enemy. 

If these accounts be true, as I hope they are not, why are not 
the traitors tried and executed ? Why are they suffered to re- 
main in the American service ? Why are they suffered to go on 
thus, shouting at, boarding, and taking our ships, insulting our gal- 
lant officers, and putting our men in irons 1 Why are they not, I 
ask again, tried and hanged ? Why are not their warm bowels 
ripped out, and thrown in their traitorous faces ? Why are their 
bodies not cut into quarters, and those quarters placed at the king's 
disposal ? — But, I had forgotten, that before these things can be 
done, we must capture the ships in which they sail ! Is there no 
other way of coming at them? It were well if those, whose busi- 
ness it is to enforce the law against state criminals, would fall upon 
some scheme to reach them. Cannot the parliament, which has 
been called omnipotent, find out some means of coming at them? 
In short, these accounts are a deep disgrace to the country ; and 
I do hope, that the lords of the admiralty, who published that elo- 
quent paper, stimulating the sailors to fight against the Americans, 
will fall speedily upon some means of putting an end to so great a 
scandal. 

I have not time, at present, to enter so fully into the 
subject of the American war as I shall in my next ; but, to the 
loose observations that I have made, I cannot refrain from adding 
a word or two on the rupture of the negotiations at Ghent, which 
is said to have taken place. Who, in his senses, expected any 
other result ? It was manifest, from the moment that Napoleon was 
removed from France, that the war with America was destined to 
become a serious contest. There were all sorts of feelings at 
work in favour of such a war. There was not a single voice 
(mine only excepted) raised against it. Was it to be supposed, 
then, that peace would be the work of a few months 1 Yet this 
rupture of the negotiations appears to have excited a good deal of 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 223 

surprise, not wholly devested of a small portion of alarm. It was 
expected that the Yankee commissioners would jump at peace on 
any terms. There were thousands of persons, and well-dressed 
persons, too, who said that the Yankees would not hesitate a 
moment to depose Mr. Madison, and send him to some little unin- 
habited island. About a fortnight ago some rifle soldiers were 
passing my house, on their way from Sussex to Plymouth, to join 
their corps, bound to America. A sergeant, who was at a little 
distance behind the party, stopped at my door and asked for some 
beer. While the beer was drawing, I observed to him, that Jona- 
than must take care now what he was about. " No," said the 
sergeant, " I do not think it will come to any head ; for we learn- 
ed, the day before yesterday, that Madison had run away." I 
asked him if they had been informed whither he liad run to. He 
replied, that he had run " out of the country" He further told 
me, that we were to have an army of 50,000 men for the conquest 
of America; and that, if they were not enough, Russia had 
60,000 men ready to send to our assistance. From this the Ame- 
ricans will judge of the opinions of the people here ; for I dare 
say that this sergeant was no more than the mere repeater of what 
he heard in almost all the public houses, resorted to by politicians 
of the most numerous class — but the people are not to be blamed 
j for this delusion. They had it given them, in the report of a 
speech of one of the lords of the admiralty, not long ago, that wft 
were about to undertake the deposing of Mr. Madison ; and who 
can blame them, if they believe that this deposition has taken 
place 1 My friend the sergeant, on whom I bestowed my bene- 
diction, will, however, I am afraid, find, that this work of de~ 
posing Mr. Madison will give more trouble than he appeared to 
expect ; my reasons for which I shall state in my next. 



AMERICAN WAR. 

The following account of a battle, and of a victory on our part, 
gained over the Americans, is, perhaps, the most curious of any 
that ever was published, even in this enlightened Lancaster-school 
country. Before I insert it, let me observe, that the scene of 
action lies in the Iteart of Canada, though, from the accounts 
that we have had, any one, not armed against the system of de- 
ception that prevails here, must have supposed that there was not 
a single American remaining in Canada. The victory in question 
is said to have been gained near the famous falls of Niagara; and 
we shall now see what sort of a victory it waa, according to the 



224 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

account of the commander himself, and which account will become 
a subject of remark, after I have inserted it. 

[Here he inserts the British official account of the battle of the 
25th July, in which they admit a loss of killed 84 ; wounded 559 ; 
missing 193; prisoners 42. Total 878.] 

Was I not right, reader, in calling this a curious account? Did 
you ever before hear, except from the mouths or pens of some cf 
our own commanders, of a victory of this sort before ? It is a fault 
which I have always to point out in our histories of battles, that 
we never begin as the historians of all other countries do, by stating 
the strength of the armies on both sides. We are left here to guess- 
at the force in the field. We are not told what was even our own 
strength on the occasion. If we had been furnished with this in- 
formation, we should have been able to judge pretty correctly of 
the nature of the combat, and of the merits of the two armies. 
When we find that there has been a total loss of 8?8 men, includ- 
ing a vast proportion of officers, we must conclude that the 
" drubbing" has been on the Americans only; for the army 
under General Drummond did not, in all probability, amount to 
more than three or four thousand men. There appears to have 
been only four battalions of regidars engaged, which would 
hardly surpass 2000 men. What the militia might have amounted 
to I cannot tell; but as far as I am able to judge from the account, 
I should suppose that we have lost, on this occasion, one man out 
of every five ; so that this is a sort of victory that is very costly at 
any rate. But, except in victories of this kind, who ever heard 
before of such numbers of missing and prisoners on the part of 
the victors ? When armies are defeated, they have generally 
pretty long lists of missing and prisoners ; but when they gain a 
victory, and, of course, remain masters of the spot on which the 
battle has taken place, how odd it is to hear that they have so ma- 
ny people taken and lost, the latter of whom they can give no 
account of ! And, especially, how odd it is that so many of these 
taken and lost persons should be officers, and officers of very high 
rank too! Never, surely, was there before a victory attended 
with circumstances so much resembling the usual circumstances of a 
defeat. The commander severely wounded; the second in com- 
mand severely wounded, and made prisoner into the bargain; the 
aid-de-camp to the commander made prisoner ; several colonels 
and lieutenant colonels wounded ; a great number of ofSr.ers and 
men missing and made prisoners. If such be the marks of a 
victory gained over the Americans, I wonder what will be the 
marks of a defeat, if, unhappily, we should chance to experience 
a defeat? At any rate, taking the matter in the most favourable 
light, what a bloody battle this must have been ! To be sure that 
is a consideration of little weight with the enemies of freedom, who 
would gladly see half England put to death, if they could thereby 



i 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 225 

have their desire of exterminating freedom in America gratified. 
But this is not all. The battle Las not merely been bloody, but it 
has afforded a proof of the determined courage of the American 
army, and leads us to believe that, if we persevere, the con- 
test will be long as well as bloody; and it is the length of (he 
contest that we have to fear. The malignant wise man, who writes 
in the Times newspaper, expresses great sorrow that the " heroes 
of Toulouse" were not arrived in Canada previous to the late 
victory. But what could they have done more than to render 
the " success of our arms complete. ?iS And this, we are told, was 
the case without their assistance. 

The same writer, in the same paper, complains of the sovereign 
of Holland for sending an ambassador to Mr. Madison; and ob- 
serves, that, if he had waited a few months, he might have been 
spared the humiliation of sending an embassy to Madison, and his 
set. Hence, it would appear, that this wise man gives our fleets 
t and armies but " a few months" to conquer America. It was 'hus 
I that the same sort of men talked in the memorable times of Bur- 
i goyne and Cornwallis. But in those times America had not a 
population of two millions; she had no government; the greater 
, part of her seaports were in our hands ; we had a fourth part of 
the people for us ; and the rest w£re without money, and almost 
without clothing and arms. I shau not deny that we may, by the 
expenditure of two or three hundred millions of money, do the 
Americans a great deal of mischief. I dare 9ay that we shall burn 
i some of their towns, aud drive some thousands of women and 
tj children back from the coast. But in the meanwhile America 
i will be building and sending out ships ; she will be gaining expe- 
! lience in the art and practice of war ; she will be pushing on her 
domestic trade and manufactures ; she will be harassing our 
commerce to death; and our taxes will beincreasiag', and annual 
loans must still be made. It is provoking', to be sure ; but it re; lly 
is so; that we must leave the Americans in the enjoyment ot their 
real liberty ; in the enjoyment of freedom which is no sham s ° 
must be content to see their country the asylum of all those in 
Europe who will not brook oppression ; we must be content to see 
America an example to every people, who are impatient under 

despotism, or or, (dreadful alternative !) we must be content 

to pay all our present taxes, and to have new ones added to them ? 
Nay, after having, for several years, made these new sacrificed in 
the cause of " regular government, social order, and our holy 
religion," it may possibly happen, at last, that America will re- 
: main unhurt; that, having been compelled to learn the art of war, 
she may become more formidable than ever ; and that, in the end, 
her fleets, in the space of ten years, may dispute with ours that 
trident which we now claim as our exclusive property. Already 
do we hear person?, who are go eager for giving the " Yankees a 



29 



22G Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

hearty drubbing" ask why this is not done ? They are already 
impatient for the conclusion, before the beginning has well taken 
place. They ask why the heroes of Toulouse were not at the 
late victory ? How unreasonable this is ! Just as if the govern- 
ment could convey them in a balloon ! Besides, were those he- 
roes to have no time for repose ? Were they to be set on the 
moment they had been taken off? The government, to do it jus- 
tice, have lost no time. They have sent out men as fast as they 
could get them ready. But it requires time to transport men, and 
guns, and horses, and oats, and hay, and straw, to America ; to 
say nothing about bread, and beef, and pork, and butter, and pease, 
and rice. Nay, we see that they had to send out the timbers for 
ships to Canada, where, one would have supposed, there was 
wood enough at any rate. If we were to get possession of New- 
York I should not be at all surprised to hear that the ministers 
were sending fuel thither for the cooking of the men's victuals. 
This is very different from what was seen in Portugal, Spain, and 
France. We shall find no partisans in America ; and, especially 
shall we find nobody to take up arms in our cause. All must go 
from this country. It is a war of enormous expense; and we 
must expect to pay that expense. If it comes to a close in seven 
years I shall think that we have very good luck. The troop* 
who are going out now, and who have been held in readiness to go 
out for so long a time, will hardly be able to pull a trigger before 
next June. By that time the Americans will have half a million 
of men, and free men, too, in arms ; and who is to subdue half a 
million of men, armed for the defence of their freedom, and their 
homes I How did the people of France, as long as the sound of 
freedom cheered their hearts, drive back, hunt, and lash their in- 
vaders. And have the Americans less courage, or less activity, 
than the French? How silly is it, then, to expect to conquer 
America in " a few months!" It is a little strange that the go- 
vernment have published no extraordinary gazette, giving an 
account of the great " victory" of which we have been speaking. 
They are not, in general, backward in doing justice to our winners 
of victories. Bit it is useless to say much about it. Time will 
unfold the truth ; and, according to all appearance, we shall have 
time enough to learn all about the events, as well as the effects, of 
the war against the republicans of America. It is strange that we 
hade no account of the exact numbers of the prisoners that we 
ourselves have made. If any officers had been taken by us, 
would they not have been named ? And if we have taken no 
officers, while the Americans have taken so many of ours, what 
manner of victory is this ? 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 227 



WAYS AND MEANS. 

In my last, I noticed the circumstance of ministers having been 
so hard pressed for money to carry on the war with America, that 
they had actually found it necessary to apply to the East-India 
Company for an advance of duties on goods not yet imported ; or, 
if brought to this country, not liable to payment of duty for several 
months to come : and for the sum thus obtained, amounting, as I 
am informed, to one million two hundred thousand pounds, a dis- 
count was allowed, though I have not heard to what extent. But 
this is not the only circumstance which shows that ministers can- 
not go on without money, and that they have adopted the resolu- 
tion of raising it, at least for the present, by other methods than 
that of loans. 

Beside the demand upon the East-India Company, which, foi' 
obvious reasons, they very quietly submitted to, a requisition has 
been made upon the other merchants in London, and, I dare say, 
elsewhere, to pay their arrears of duties on bonded goods, which 
had not for some time been levied, in consequence of the general 
stagnation of commerce. These gentry, however, do not seem so 
well disposed as the East-India Company are, to comply with the 
demands of government, and have called a public meeting, for the 
purpose of taking " into consideration the very alarming situation 
in which they are likely to be placed by the recent determination 
of the lords of the treasury ;" and the Morning Chronicle, which 
is always sympathetic when any thing occurs to indulge ita sple- 
netic humour against ministers, has shown its fellow-feeling for 
these merchants, on this very trying, very alarming occasion, by 
the following sorrowful lamentation : " The scarcity of money, 
which has forced the chancellor of the exchequer to the harsh mea- 
sure of forcing payment of the duties on all goods that have been 
bonded above a twelvemonth, will occasion distress and inconve- 
nience in the city, much more grievous than would have been felt 
by a new loan. The measure of bonding was adopted for the pur- 
pose of making this country a depot for the products of different 
climes— that they might be supplied as the demand arose for 
them ; and it was an admirable contrivance to secure to the coun- 
try the carrying trade, as well as to ease the merchant when the 
markets of the continent were shut up against us. These goods 
have accumulated in the warehouses for five years, and the amount 
of duties upon them is said to he four millions sterling. Now, 
to force these goods out upon the market all at once, without regard 
to the demand or price, is a measure of such severity as was never 
attempted before. Many of the original owners are gone. They 



228 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

disposed of their property, and it may have passed through seve- 
ral hands. In many cases sums have been lent upon the security 
of those bonded goods ; and if they are to be brought forth, and 
exposed to sale, they must fall to a price ruinous to all parties. 
We suppose that a very strong representation of all the fads will 
be made to the treasury against the measure, as they are ordered 
to clear ihem out, and pay the duties on or before Sunday the 30th 
inst. We suppose that the chancellor of the exchequer consider- 
ed that ' the better day, the better deed.' If he should not suc- 
ceed in procuring this seasonable supply, will this be an apology 
for requiring a loan, or the funding of exchequer bills after all ?" 

Those who have been accustomed to consider the writer of this 
journal the enemy of corruption, will be able to appreciate, by the 
above article, his pretensions to that character. When the un- 
expected event of the overthrow of Napoleon electrified, as it were, 
the good people of this country, and almost rendered them frantic . 
with joy, did not the Morning Chronicle, on that occasion, vie 
wilh the prostituted hireling journals in abusing the fallen emperor ; 
in stigmatizing him a tyrant, a despot, and a usurper ; and in giv- 
ing ministers credit, nay, loading them wilh praise, for the noble 
efforts they had made to rid the earth of sucba monster? Was 
not this a direct approval, of every warlike measure of ministers I 
Was it not a tacit acknowledgment, that every sixpence of money 
they had levied had been properly done, and met with their en- 
tire approbation? But, what is more: Has not this* organ of a 
faction, while canting and whining about the miseries and calami- 
ties of war, given its hearty concurrence to the prosecution of the 
war with America, and applauded every step taken by govern- 
ment to recolonize the United Slates? Even the most servile of 
all the crew of corruptionists has not been able to excel this con- 
temptible writer in the manner he has exulted over the reverses of 
the Americans. Either the editor of the Morning Chronicle ia 
sincere in wishing the Yankees a drubbing, or he is not sincere. 
If the latter, then does he labour in vain to be consistent, by pro- 
fessions of regard for peace and abhorrence of war, while he acqui- 
esces in, and applauds, the hostile measures pursued against Ame- 
rica. But if this new war is not altogether displeasing to the or- 
gan of the whigs; if he and his party have resolved to allow mi- 
nisters to prosecute it their own way, without any molestation 
from them, how comes it that they are endeavouring, as is evident: 
from the above article, to paralyze the hands of ministers ? If the 
war with France required money to carry it on ; if we could not 
put down Napoleon without increasing the national debt from two 
hundred andjijty nine millions to nine hundred and seventy ; 
if the deliverance of Europe could not be effected untd the coun- 
try was burthened with an incalculable load of taxes; by what 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 



229 



means is it that we are to reconquer America, and to compel up- 
wards of eight millions of people, who have shown no liking for our 
government, to submit to its sway, and to relinquish all the bless- 
ings of independence ? Is there any other way of doing it but with 
money.'' To say nothing of their pay, can the men we are every- 
day sending across the Atlantic, to humble the Yankees, be con- 
veyed thither without money ? They must have food as well as 
clothing. The seamen must also have food who navigate the ves- 
sels, and this not for the voyage merely, but for the whole time it 
is calculated we are to take in conquering the Americans. Then 
there is the immense quantity of naval and military stores, neces- 
sary for such an army, to be provided for. Can this be done with- 
out money, or even with a little money ? No, surely ; the war 
with America, like every other war, can only be supported with 
money ; and where are ministers to look for it but into the pockets 
of those men who called for the war, and who promised them their 
warmest support, if they would only give Jonathan a drubbing % 
who assured ministers that they would consider no sacrifice too 
great to obtain this desirable object ? 

What right, then, have these men to come forward, now that 
the American war has begun in real earnest, and complain of the 
hardships of making them fulfil their engagements ? Or where is 
the consistency, the respect for principle, so much talked of, 
by the Morning Chronicle, when it tells us that it would be harsh, 
distressing, inconvenient, grievous, severe, ruinous, and the Lord 
knows what, to force these men to keep their promises ? Is it be- 
cause they are alarmed, because they begin to feel the conse- 
quences of the'ivfoUy, that they deserve compassion ? For my 
part, it gives me real satisfaction to find these bawlers for war be- 
ginning at last to feel uneasy for their situation. I wish sincerely 
they had begun to be alarmed somewhat sooner. It would have 
been for the interest of all Europe ; I may say, it would have 
been for the interest of the whole human race, if these alarmists 
had, twenty years ago, instead of raising a clamour against liberty ; 
if they had then felt some of those compunctions they now feel, 
about the cost of the war into which they plunged us. As it is, 
however, no real friend of his country will regret their present 
alarms. Long, too long, has the majority, the most deserving 
class of the community, suffered inconvenience and distress. 
Harsh, grievous, severe, and ruinous, to thousands, have been the 
measures pursued under the tedious and lengthened reigns of cor- 
ruption. It is high time, therefore, that the authors of these ca- 
lamities should themselves have a little experience of the benefits 
resulting from the pernicious system to which they have so long 
given countenance and support. My only fear is, that they d<s> 
not feel enough ; that they are not sufficiently alarmed about their 
situation ; and that, notwithstanding all their sympathetic brother 






230 Letters of William C'obbett, Esq. 

of (he Morning Chronicle has so dolefully said in their behalf, 
they will yet be induced to part with their money, and to go on 
believing all that our lying presses tell them about our successes 
over the Yankees, and the great commercial advantages which 
these must shortly produce. The chancellor of the exchequer, 
in the meanwhile, cannot but feel himself placed in a very awk- 
ward situation, by the restive spirit displayed by John Bull on 
this occasion ; and perhaps is now regretting that he so easily de« 
parted from the usual, and more palatable way of raising money 
by annuity. He was driven to this, I have no doubt, on account 
of the recent uncommon fall in the stocks, occasioned by the anti- 
cipation in the money market of a new loan. It was very natural, 
in these circumstances, to turn his attention elsewhere ; and where 
could he turn it, with greater propriety, than to a quarter where 
the war had always been most popular, and to a fund which, in 
truth, belonged to the country ? The money had in advance of 
the East-India Company, can scarcely be considered in that light; 
but, in the case now before us, it is admitted, that there is in the 
hands of the London merchants no less a sum than/oi«r 7nil lions 
sterling belonging to the public, that has been accumulating (or Jive 
years, during which, that same public have been submitting to 
great privations, in order to make up the deficiencies this occasion- 
ed. Had the Morning Chronicle been properly alive to the in- 
terests of the country, it would have called for the immediate ap- 
plication of this money to the necessities of the state, instead of 
advocating the cause of a set of men who have enriched themselves 
by ihe war, and who, even had they been losers by it, have no 
right to complain ; because, had it not been for the support they 
have all along given to the war, the nation would never have been 
in its present calamitous state. These loyalty men, too ; these 
chvrch and state men ; these haters of jacobins and levellers ; what 
nctv proof is this they are giving of their patriotism ? Do they 
wish the country for whom, only a few years ago, they offered to 
sacrifice their lives and fortunes ; do they wish us now to believe 
that there was no sincerity in these professions ? Were they loyal 
only so long as they were relieved from the burdens of the war? 
Do they regard it as no longer deserving their support than it ena 
bles them, by a vast accumulation of foreign products, to keep up 
the price of these articles, and thus render war advantageous only 
to themselves? But let me not be accused of ascribing improper 
motives to ihese gentlemen. It may be that the Morning Chronicle 
has misconceived the object of the intended meeting, and thus in- 
cautiously rendered its own principles suspected, and exposed its 
dearest friends to the danger of being ranked amongst the disaffect- 
ed, the jacobins, and the levellers, who neither delight in war, nor 
sigh for a participation of the public plunder. I shall not, how- 
ever, lose sigiit of the subject; for those who have been the most 
active in promoting war, and who have derived the greatest benefit 



? 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 231 

from it, are among (he last who ought to be allowed to escape with- 
out paying their share of the expense necessary to carry it on. 
The Courier, in noticing that part of the statement of the 
Morning Chronicle which respects the supposed hardship of levy- 
ing the arrears of duties on bouded goods, says : " The good3 have 
been bonded three, four, or five years ; at last, government de- 
mands the duty upon them. Is it not the same as if government 
had given a man permission to defer the payment of his income 
tax for three years, and then required it to be paid ? It must be 
paid at last." From this it appears that it is seriously intended 
to put the loyalty of our London merchants to the test. I hope 
nothing will occur to induce ministers to abandon this intention. 
As to what the Chronicle says about a loan, or funding exchequer 
bills, the Courier replies, that nothing of the kind is in contempla- 
tion ; the truth being, " that the ways and means already provided 
are sufficient to meet the expenditure to be incurred until some 
time after Christmas, probably the spring; and the parliament, at 
its next meeting, will only be called upon to extend the appropri- 
ation of them." It might be supposed from this light way of 
treating the subject, that the money raised and expended since the 
abdication of Napoleon, had been of a very trifling nature. But 
the fact is, independent of all the taxes levied previous to that 
event being still in existence, no less than fifty one millions sterling 
was borrowed subsequent to the year 181*2 ; and if to this is add- 
ed the advanced duties paid by the East-India Company, and 
what is about to be raised of arrears on bonded goods, our national 
expenditure, in the short period of two years, will be found to be 
equal, if not greater, than what it was during the most expensive 
period of the war with France. The sum borrowed since 1812 is, 
in truth, only two millions short of the whole national debt at the 
death of George I. and more than a third of its amount at the end 
of the seven years' war, 1 762. These facts will appear obvious 
from the annexed table, and, I think, must render it sufficiently 
dear, that means have not been wan'ing hitherto, whatever may be 
at present, to give energy to the established system. 

King William, of glorious memory, was ihe father of our na- 
tional debt. At his death, in 

Millions. 
1702, it extended to - . 46 

1714, death of queen Anne - » 48 

1725, George I. - - 53 

1762, end of seven years' war - • 141 

17S2, — — American war - - 268 

1792, beginning of French war. - - 259 

1802, middle of ditto - - - 540 

1813, month of July - - - £973,283,159 

Of this last sum there has been redeemed by the sinking fund 224,661,932 
Leaving of unredeemed capital - - £748,621,227 

' But as there is interest payable on the money borrowed to form the sinking fund, 
I the redeemed capital cannot be deducted, -oith propriety, from the amount of the 
I. 



i 



232 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

debt, until the annuitants of the sinking fund are paid the principal aad interest of 
the sums they advanced. 

I observe, since the above remarks were sent to press, that the 
meeting of the London merchants has taken place. The chair 
was filled by that disinterested and staunch loyalist, Sir Charles 
Price, who, poor man, has more occasion to regret the termination 
of the war than all the government contractors put together. 
Whether the knight and his brethren had taken the alarm that 
their loyalty was in danger of being suspected, if they went the 
length the Morning Chronicle had done ; or whether Sir Charles 
had agreed to take the chair as a matter of policy, to keep down 
turbulent spirits, who might, on this occasion, be disposed to be 
clamorous, it is certain the meeting was conducted in a more 
peaceable and orderly manner than there was reason, on the first 
blush of the business, to expect. The Courier report of the 
proceedings makes the loyal baronet say, " He did not think it 
necessary for him to make many observations, as he conceived 
that every gentleman present must feel how ruinous it would 
be to the trade of London, and what a cruel hardship it would be 
to many individuals, to have those duties strictly levied on so 
early a day as the 30th. The committee had come to certain 
resolutions which would be submitted to them, but he should be 
happy to hear any gentleman who wished still further to elucidate 
the subject. He hoped, however, that, in whatever observations 
might be made, the subject would be considered coolly^ and that 
no extraordinary warmth might be introduced into the discussion. 
They had only one object— the benefit of the trade ; and although 
they might differ from the lords of the treasury on this point, yet, 
so far from making any severe observations upon his majesty's 
government, he believed that it was the wish of every one present 
to support it. // was, thank God, the best government exist- 
ing in the world. The resolutions agreed to by the committee 
were then proposed, and unanimously adopted. A committee 
was then appointed to wait upon the lords of the treasury, and 
point out to them the ruinous consequences, both to trade and to 
the individual merchants, from acting upon the notification that 
had been given." I am glad it is thus established, beyond dis- 
pute, that the merchants of London really fed the ruinous effects 
of the measures which they have so long and so strenuously sup- 
ported. The extraordinary warmth, the severe observations, of 
which the chairman was afraid, clearly indicates, that the minds 
of the trading interest begin to be seriously alarmed. Had these 
alarms been occasioned by any other cause than individual in- 
terest; had they arisen from a proper conviction of the impolicy 
of public measures ; had the ruined state of the country, the rapid 
and enormous increa?e of our national debt, the pernicious effects 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 233 

of our paper currency, and the insupportable burden of taxes. 
Had causes and considerations like these given birth to these fears 
and apprehensions, my satisfaction would be greater still. But 
no — it is self, mere self, that occasions these alarms. Not an 
atom of patriotism influences them; these terrors result only from 
the dread of being compelled to disgorge a part of the money 
which the bonding monopoly has enabled them to amass at the 
expense of public industry. They would willingly apply a reme- 
dy to the disease, but then it must cost them nothing. They 
have been bawling^ for more than twenty years, about the best 
government in the world. This only required a stock of impii' 
dence and good lunga. Give them reason to hope that another 
twenty years of clamour will be as productive as the last, and 
they will immediately forget the ruinous, the cruel hardship, of 
compelling them to do justice to the country, and bawl as loud as 
ever. But, as already said, I am glad these corruptionists, who 
have so long luxuriated on public plunder, begin to feel alarmed 
at their situation ; first, because it is high time they should expe- 
rience some of those pangs that have sent thousands to their 
graves, and to the workhouse. Next, because, although it is 
not upon public grounds they now complain, something may 
arise out of these complaints that may open the eyes of the cre- 
dulous and deluded multitude, and ultimately lead to a favourable 
change. I see it stated, in all the newspapers, that the emperors 
of Russia and Austria, and the king of Prussia, have issued orders 
to recall the excess of paper currency, which the great exigencies 
of the war had occasioned, and, in other respects, are giving their 
subjects such relief as must convince them that the cry of peace 
is not a deception, and that the benefits resulting from a cessation 
of arms are not chimerical. But in this happy country, under the 
best government now existing in the world, instead of the circu- 
lation of paper money being lessened, instead of the public debt 
being reduced, instead of the war taxes being removed, they are 
every day increasing to a fearful amount. Everywhere, amongst 
all classes of society, to whatever side one turns himself, nothing 
is to be heard but curses on the peace. Even when walking along 
the public streets, it is no way uncommon to be attracted by the 
murmurs of the labourer and the mechanic, who deeply deplore 
an event, which, they calculated, would be to them the dawn of 
happiness, but which has not been accompanied with one single 
blessing. The plain and obvious reason of this disappoiutment is, 
people are still in a state of stupid intoxication, of which corrup- 
tion has dexterously availed itself to plunge the country into a new 
war. They may complain of sufferings as much as they please ; 
they may talk till doomsday about the hardships they endure ; 
but as long as they do not shake off their present lethargy ; as long 

30 



234 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq* 

as (hey continue (lie willing dupes, and hug the chains of their 
oppressors, just so Jong are they undeserving of compassion, or 
of a termination of their miseries. 



AMERICAN WAR. 

When the French war was closed in a manner so satisfactory 
to those who had been its most strenuous advocates, they, never- 
theless, perceived the want of war with somebody or other, as 
being absolutely necessary to the support of that system on which 
they lived, and which a long war had introduced, and, in some 
sort, established. It was curious to observe the effect which the 
peace had upon this description of persons. They mourned in 
their hearts at the success of the projects of the government. 
They had been, for years, reviiing Napoleon ; they had been 
cursing all those who did not join them in these revilings ; and 
yet they lamented his fall. In short, they, as I once observed, 
found themselves in that sort of state which our reverend divines 
would find themselves in if my worthy friend, Mr. Fordham, were 
to succeed in his strenuous, but I trust, fruitless, endeavours to 
persuade the good people of England that there is no such being 
as the devil. There were, at the close of the French war, thou- 
sands upon thousands who dreaded the effects of peace ; who, in 
fact, were likely to be almost starved, literally starved, by that 
event. To these persons, a very numerous, and very busy, and. 
noisy and impudent class, any thing that would keep up the ex- 
penses of war, was hailed with joy ; and as the American war 
was the only source of hope, in this respect, the outcry was at 
once transferred from Napoleon to Mr. Madison, who now became 
the devil ; the man of sin, against whom it was necessary for this 
chosen and pious nation to wage war. Unluckily for the cause 
of peace, the corn in England had become cheap during the last 
half year of the war ; and all that numerous and powerful class 
who derive their incomes from the land, whether as landlords, te- 
nants, or tythe owners, began to cry out against the effects of 
peace. With them the American war was better than no war at 
all. They did not consider what burthen of taxes this war would 
cause. This was quite out of the question. The whole nation, 
with the exception of the few remaining jacobins, went "ding 
dong" to work, " to give the Yankees a good hearty drubbing." 
Things are, however, now somewhat changed. The kings are 
gone ; the wiseacres have had their feaslings and rejoicings ; the 
drunk is over, and nothing but the noisome fumes left. The peo- 
ple, who appeared to exuit at the peace, now seem to wonder why 
they did so. The nation, after the departure of the kings and 



Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 235 

their generals, and after the glorious sights in the parks at Lon- 
don, seems to resemble a battered old hag, who, in the morning 
after a rout, sits gaping and yawning, sick of the world and of 
herself. Every thing ia dull ; and all appears to be changed for 
the worse; the farmer cannot sell his corn at a price proportioned 
to his outgoings ; the French send us all sorts of produce, down 
oven to garden stuffs, at half the price at which we can raise them. 
The farmer cries out at this ; the shopkeeper and tradesman re- 
vile the farmer and landholder ; they rejoice to see them brought 
down, and at the same time complain that their business falls off; 
forgetting that this is the natural consequence of the bringing 
down of the farmer and land owner. Those who have fixed in- 
comes, and those who carry on no business of profit, those, in 
short, who are not compelled to remain in the country in order to 
get their living ; a very great portion of these have quitted the king- 
dom, and have gone to avoid taxes, and to purchase bread and meat 
upon the continent. This has proved a dreadful stroke to all that 
part of trade which depended upon luxury ; and what is worse, 
the evil is daily and hourly increasing — for, one tells another, one 
who has lived in France a month for what would have been re- 
quired to support him here a week, tells the aewa to his relations 
and friends. A. quartern loaf for threepence, a pound of beef for 
three halfpence, a fowl for fourpence, a turkey for two shillings, 
a bottle of wine for sixpence ! What news for an Englishman, who 
has a family, who lives upon what is called his means, and who, 
with a thousand a year, is really in a situation to envy a coachman 
or a footman ! No income tax to pay ; no exciseman to enter your 
house when he pleases ; no tythe of the produce of your meadow 
and garden, and pig-stye, and hen-house. What news for an Eng- 
lishman ! who, with the outside of a gentleman, lives in constant 
dread of a tax-gatherer ! No poor rates to pay. Nobody who has 
authority to make you give part of your property to support those 
who, perhaps, are really less in want than you. What news for the 
poor Englishman, who is eternally called upon for money by the 
overseer and churchwarden ! In short, what an escape from ex- 
penses and cares ! No man can tell on what day, or at what 
hour, he will be called upon by the government agents for a sum 
of money ; and it is only in certain cases that any man can guess 
at the amount of the next sum that he will be compelled to pay. 
What a relief to be at once out of the reach of all such demands ! 
This, together with the cheapness of living in France, cause peo- 
ple to emigrate to that and the neighbouring countries ; while ail 
foreigners, of course, have quitted England for their native coun- 
tries. Those which cannot emigrate have all the taxes to pay, 
while great part of their sources of payment are gone. Thus, that 
peace that overthrew Napoleon, which was to bring us a compen- 
sation for all our sacrifices, has already made our situation worse. 



236 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

seeing that, in this American war, we have a ground for continu- 
ing all the taxes, while the peace with France has taken from us 
all the means of paying them. Amongst those who wished for the 
overthrow of Napoleon, were those who had to pay ten per cent, 
out of their fixed incomes to support the war against him. Oh ! 
said they, let him be beaten, let that cause of the war be put down, 
and then the tax on us will cease. He is put down. He has been 
put down many months. The tax has not ceased, and, if it cease, 
some other tax of equal weight must be imposed in its room, or if 
this be not done, the American war must cease; and that, too, 
without " giving the Yankees a hearty drubbing ;" for, up to this 
time, they have rather been drubbing tis, which is a most lamenta-. 
ble fact to go down to posterity. To be sure we have, if report 
be true, given it them upon the Serpentine River, where the Bri- 
tish naval flag was everywhere seen flying over the American 
flag reversed. But, say the Yankee readers, what does this Ser- 
pentine River mean ? What is the story of this achievement, so 
glorious to old England, and her wooden walls ?. I will tell them. 

The regent, in the name and on behalf of our " good old king, 
God bless him," as they say in the toasts at the city feast ; the 
regent, in order at once to amuse and instruct the people of the 
metropolis, caused, at the epoch of the peace, fleets in miniature 
to be set on float on a piece of water, in a park near London, call- 
ed Hyde Park. The piece of water spreads, perhaps, over a 
space equal to about eight or ten acres. Here the English fleet 
performed wonders against the Americans, whose frigates they 
sometimes sunk, sometimes burnt, sometimes destroyed, and some- 
times captured. There were some hottish fights ; but our tars 
always, in the end, overcame the Yankee dogs, and, at the close 
of the day, the Yankee flag was seen flying reversed, under the 
English, in token of the defeat and disgrace of the former. But 
this was not the only instance in which the Yankees were beaten 
and disgraced. In Portsmouth harbour, a few days before the 
continental kings visited that port, I saw the Yankee flag flying re- 
versed under the English on board of several ships. The regent, 
I understood, came to Portsmouth that very night. How pleasing 
it must have been to his Royal Highness to behold such a sight ! 
The spectators were in raptures at it. They shouted amain ; 
and, for the moment, seemed to forget even the taxes. 

Well, then, who has any ground of complaint 1 The govern- 
ment cannot obtain for us the reality of what was here exhibited in 
vision, without collecting from us the taxes necessary to support 
and carry on the war ; and until we petition against the American 
war, we can have no reason whatever to complain of the taxes. 

The question of justice or of injustice seems to have been 
wholly laid aside for some time past. The giving of the hearty 
drubbing to the insolent Yankees has supplied the place of all 



Letters of William Cohbett, Esq. 23T- 

such topics. But I do not know how it has happened, there are 
people who now begin to ask, why we are still at war? I will, 
therefore, once more state the grounds of the present war with 
America, in as clear a manner as I can, consistent with brevity. 
In 1810, and on to 1812, there existed two subjects of complaint 
on the part of the Americans against us. They complained that, 
by virtue of certain Orders in Council, issued by us, we violated 
their neutral rights ; and, also, that we were guilty of a gross attack 
upon their independence, by stopping their merchant vessels at 
sea, and taking out of them persons, under pretence of their being 
British subjects. The Orders of Council were repealed in 1812, 
and, therefore, that ground of complaint then ceased. But the 
other ground of complaint still existed. We contiuued to take 
persons out of their ships ; and, upon that ground, after divers 
remonstrances, they declared war against us. I ought here to 
stop to observe that a great error was adopted by the nation at 
the time when the Orders of Council were repealed. It was 
said in parliament, and believed by the nation, that, if the Orders 
in Council were repealed, all would be well, and that a settlement 
of all differences with America would immediately follow. This 
assertion I contradicted at the time, knowing that it would prove 
to be false ; because the congress had repeatedly declared that 
they never would yield the point of impressment, that being the 
term which they gave to the forcible seizure of persons on board 
their ships on the high seas. The minister (Perceval) opposed 
the repeal of the Orders in Council as long as he could, alleging, 
as one objection to it, that it would not satisfy the Americans and 
prevent war. The advocates of the repeal insisted that it would 
satisfy the Americans ; and, as a proof of the sincerity of this 
their opinion, they pledged themselves, that in case the repeal did 
not satisfy America, they would support the war against her with 
all their might. This pledge obtained, the minister had no oppo- 
sition to fear within doors or without; for the opposition were 
pledged to support the war, and their prints became, of course, 
pledged along with them. The people were led to believe, that 
it was only the Council Orders that had formed the ground of 
complaint with America ; and when they still found that she per- 
severed in the war after the repeal of those orders, they set up a 
charge of treachery and breach of faith against her. This error, 
which originated in the desire of the opposition to beat the minis- 
ter, has produced much mischief. It obtained favour to the war 
at first; and things taking a lucky turn upon the continent, all idea 
of a dread of America vanished, and nothing was thought of but 
punishing her for her insolence. But still her great subject of 
complaint existed. She went to war on that ground ; and, (here- 
fore, let us now see what that ground really was. It is well known 
that, whether in language, manners, or person, it is very difficult, 



23S Letters of William Gobbett, Esq. 

if not quite impossible, in most cases, to distinguish an American 
from a native of England. We alleged that the American mer- 
chant captains sailed with English sailors on board their ships, 
some of them deserters from the English navy, and that as the 
American ships were very numerous, and frequently sailed from 
ports where English men-of-war lay, such harbouring of our sea- 
men became dangerous to the very existence of our naval force, 
and, of course, put our national safety in jeopardy. 

Upon these grounds we adopted a remedy, which was to au- 
thorize the commanders of our ships of war to stop American 
vessels at sea, and to impress out of them all persons appearing 
to them to be British subjects. The Americans alleged that, in 
virtue of this authority, our officers impressed out of their ships 
many thousands of native Americans, forced them on board of our 
ships of war, compelled them to fight against nations at peace with 
America, and in a service and cause which they abhorred, took 
them into distant climates, exposed them to danger and to death,, 
ruined their prospects in life, and filled America with distressed 
parents, wives, and children. That this was the case in numerous 
instances, our government has never denied. Indeed, they could 
not ; for a great number of persons, native Americans, so impress- 
ed, were at different times released by the admiralty, on the 
demand of the American consul in England. But it must have 
followed of necessity, that many borne away into battle, or into 
distant seas, would nevter find the means of obtaining their release ; 
and, indeed, it is well known that many lost their limbs, and many 
their lives, in our service, subjected to the discipline of our navy. 
Those, who are for giving the Yankees a good hearty drubbing, 
will hardly be disposed to feel much for the fathers and mothers 
thus bereft of their sons, or for the wives and children thus bereft 
of their fathers. But, I can assure them, as I assured the Prince 
Regent, in 11)12, that the people of America felt very acutely 
upon tbe subject; that the newspapers of that country were filled 
with their lamentations, and with their cries for ^ ^ engeance. The 
American government remonstrated with ours ; it besought our 
government to desist from this practice, which it asserted to be a 
violation of the known laws of nations, an outrageous insult to Ame- 
rica as an independent state, and an aggression, in short, which the 
American nation was resolved to resent. 

Our government asserted that it had a right to the service of 
its own sailors ; that the danger to our very existence was so great 
that the practice could not be given up ; that if American citizens 
were taken by mistake they were sorry for it, and would give 
them up when demanded by their government; but that the prac- 
tice was of vital importance ; for that, without it, our navy would 
be ruined. The last argument has, indeed, always been the main 
one with those who have justified the practice of impressment. The 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Ejq. 239 

American government, in answer to this, said, " We do not want 
your seamen ; we would rather that they were never again to 
aerve on board of American ships ; we want none bat our own 
seamen, leaving you yours. But if your seamen have so great a 
partiality for our service and our country, as to quit you, or, as to 
be disposed to quit you, in numbers so great as to endanger your 
very existence as a nation ; if this be really so, it is no fault of 
ours. We cannot help their preferring our ships, and our country, 
to yours, any more than a pretty girl can help the young men 
liking her better than they like her ugly companions. Their fault 
is their want of taste, perhaps; but, at any rate, the fault cannofe 
be ours. Therefore, you have no reason to complain of us ; nor 
have you any right to interrupt our commercial pursuits, under 
pretence of recovering those whom you call your subjects. There 
are, perhaps, some Americans who have a taste for your service* 
Keep them, in God's name. We never do, and never will, at- 
tempt to impress them from on board your ships ; and, indeed, 
we have no right so to do, such a practice being without a single 
precedent in the whole list cf writings on public law, and in all the 
long history of maritime nations." 

This was the substance of the language of the American govern- 
ment. But they did not stop at asserting that we bad no right to 
do what we did. They said further, " Nevertheless, in order to- 
convince you of our sincere desire not to employ your seamen, we 
will do much more than strict right calls upon us to do. We think 
it strange that the jack tars of England, the jolly, sincere, brave, 
I faithful, patriotic, and loyal sons of Neptune, to whom the deity 
has so long delegated his trident, and who are, as we learn from all 
your national saying3 and singings, so firmly attached to their be- 
loved king and his family ; we think it passing strange, that these 
admirable and single-hearted persons should be disposed to leave 
your glorious fleet, and to flock to our poor Yankee service ; and 
we cannot but believe that some ill-minded people have calumniated 
your honest, jolly jack tars, when they have persuaded you to 
believe that the impressment of the jolly jacks from on board of 
our Yankee ships is necessary to the existence of your navy* 
However, supposing this really to be the case, we are willing, for 
the sake of peace, to provide an effectual remedy." They then 
made these propositions : That whenever an American ship was 
in any port, no matter in what country, any person, authorized 
by our government, might go to any civil magistrate of the port 
or town, and demand to have surrendered to him any man ^ut of 
the American ship, upon the allegation of his being a British sub- 
ject ; and that if the civil magistrate, upon hearing the parties, 
should determine in favour of the claimant, the man should at once 
be surrendered to him, though such magistrate should be one of 
Mir own justices of the peace, either in England or in any of ouv 



240 Letters of William Cobbeit, Esq* 

colonies. And, further, in order most effectually to prevent any 
British subject from being even received on board an American 
ship as a sailor, the American government offered to pass an act 
imposing a very heavy pecuniary penalty (so high, I believe, as a 
thousand dollars) on every master of an American ship who 
should engage a British subject to serve on board his ship ; so 
that any such person so engaged would have had nothing to do 
but to give information, and receive, I believe, TOO dollars out of 
the thousand. 

With this regulation, and this penal enactment, it appears to 
me that it would have been impossible for any number of our 
countrymen to have served in the American ships. Reader, can 
you imagine any way by which the American government could 
have more fully proved its sincere desire not to injure England by 
affording a place of refuge to English sailors ? If you can, state 
it; if you cannot, I must leave you to discover why these offers 
were not accepted : and why this war was not avoided. But sup- 
posing these offers not to have been satisfactory, why are we not 
at peace now ? The peace in Europe put an end to the cause of 
dispute. Our sailors could no longer desert to American ships, 
when they were discharged from our own. The peace in Europe 
put an end to the quarrel, as naturally as the cessation of a shower 
puts an end to the quarrel of two persons who are contending for 
the shelter of a pent-house. We had nothing to do but to make 
a treaty of peace, and say nothing more about the impressment 
of seamen. If the Americans were willing to do this, I am at a 
loss to discover how the continuance of the war is to be justified. 
I am aware, indeed, that it has been strongly inculcated in the 
Times, and other newspapers, that we ought now, now, now, now, 
while all goes on so smoothly; now, while the tide is with us, to 
crush America for ever ; to clip her wings for a ceifoiry; to 
annihilate her means of forming a navy to be our rival on the 
ocean. Alas! if this be the project, it is not America that we 
are at war with ; it is Nature herself, in whose immutable decrees 
it is written, that no such project shall succeed. We must, to 
effect this famous project, annihilate her woods, her waters, and 
her lands ; and though our parliament has been called omnipotent, 
its omnipotence is not of that sort which is requisite for such an 
undertaking. It can do what it pleases with us in these islands; 
but it cannot reach across the Atlantic, except by its fleets and 
armies ; except by means of the same sort which are opposed to 
it. . Mere it is omnipotent, because here is no power to resist it ; 
but there, a power exists in open defiance of it. Therefore, it 
cannot do there what it pleases. 

It is impossible to say what exploits our armies and navy may 
perform in America. I shall leave the military and naval opera- 
tions to time, the great trier of all things. But certain it is, tbaT 



i 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 241 

fee gentry, who were so hot for the drubbing, begin to be very 
impatient. The war, in their view of the matter, appears to lan- 
guish. Little or no blood is drawn. We hear of no fine towns 
demolished j none of those fatal things, the manufactories of woollens 
and cottons, have been destroyed ; there are still American public 
ships of war afloat, and more building; and, as to the private ships 
of war, they swarm even upon the coasts of (he " mother country," 
to the great vexation of the Morning Chronicle, who calls them " in- 
solent marauders." Oh ! insolent dogs ! come into our own chan- 
nel, and almost into our own ports ! Come three thousand miles to 
insult their natural mother ! I wonder they are not afraid of being 
destroyed by the " British thunder.*' But, Mr. Perry, who makes 
use of inapplicable terms ? A marauder means one that goes to 
seek plunder unlawfully ; and if he be detected, he is, generally, 
hanged — whereas these privateers from America come with com- 
missions on board. They are fully authorized by the laws of 
their own country to do what they do ; and even if we chance to 
capture them, we can treat their crews only as prisoners of war. 
Perhaps Mr. Perry, or his editor, thinks that we ought to be al- 
lowed to destroy American towns, and to lay waste the country, 
without any opposition, or any act of retaliation. Is it not " inso- 
ient" in us to threaten to reduce the Americans to "unconditional 
submission?" Is it not insolent in us to say in our public prints, 
and under the form of a speech in parliament by one of the lords 
of the admiralty j that Mr. Madison is to be deposed? Yet all 
this is allowable, and even praiseworthy. This, however, is not 
a way to put an end to the war. The dilemma in which the foes 
of freedom are placed is one of great difficulty. America is the 
very hot-bed of freedom. While the people in that country re- 
tain their liberties ; that is to say, while that country remains 
unsubdued, despotism, under whatever name she may disguise 
herself, is never safe ; and if peace takes place with America, 
not only will she instantly start, with enormous advantages, in the 
race of manufactures and commerce, but millions of men and 
money will flock to her from Europe, which her example will soon 
again shake to the centre. On the other hand, if the war be per- 
severed in against her, all our taxes must be continued, and loans 
must annually be made. Which our statesmen will prefer, it would 
be presumption in me to attempt to predict, and, therefore, I shall, 
for the present, leave the subject, with just observing, that those 
who are still for giving the Yankees a drubbing, ought to receive 
the tax-gatherer with open arms, and greet him with an almost 
holy kiss. 



:^i 



34*2 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 



AMERICAN WAR. 

I have, from the first, expressed my apprehensions as to the 
end of this war. I used the utmost of my endeavours to pre'vent 
it. While shut up in a prison, out of which, at the end of two 
long years, 1 went, with the paying of a thousand pounds to the 
king, for having had the indiscretion to write about the flogging of 
English local militiamen, at the town of Ely, in England, and about 
the presence of Hanoverian troops upon that occasion ; while so 
shut up, the greatest object of my efforts was to prevent this ill-fatedr 
war, the seeds of which I saw sown, and the maturity of which I 
saw pushed on by those malignant and foul wretches, the writers 
of the Times and Courier newspapers. This was the way in 
which I employed my days and years of imprisonment: my efforts 
were all in vain. In vain did I show the falsehood of the state- 
ments and the doctrines on which the war-whoopers proceeded ; 
in vain did I appeal to the reason and justice, and even to the 
interest of a people deluded into a sort of furor against America. 
At last the war took place, and the disgrace which we suffered at 
sea completed the madness of the nation, who seemed to have no 
other feeling than that of mortification and revenge. What! should 
the people be suffered to live ! should they be suffered to exist in 
the world, who had defeated and captured a British frigate / 
should those who had caused the British flag to be hauled down 
not be exterminated! Disappointment; astonishment; fury! 
The nation was mad. " Rule Britannia" the constant call of the 
boasting rabble, at places of public resort, was no longer called for 
with such eagerness, and was heard with less rapture. The heroes 
in blue and buff carried their heads less lofty. Their voices 
seemed to become more faint, and their port less majestic. They 
seemed to feel as men of honour would upon such an occasion. 
In short, we all felt that a new era had taken place in the naval 
annals of the world. 

Still, however, the dread of the power of Napoleon restrained 
many from a wish to see us embarked in a war for the conquest of 
America. But he was scarcely subdued by the combined efforts 
of all Europe, when this whole nation called aloud for war, a war 
of punishment, against the American states. And it was openly 
declared, in the most popular of our newspapers, that we ought 
never to sheath the sword till we had subjugated the states, or, at 
least, subverted their form of government. The pernicious exam- 
ple of the existence of a republic, founded on a revolution, was 
openly declared to be inconsistent with the safely of our govern- 
ment. It was, besides, distinctly alleged that now, now, now, or 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 243 

wever, was the lime to prevent America from ever having a navy. 
The necessity of destroying her means of having a navy has since 
been repeatedly urged. It has been stated, and restated, that our 
naval power must soon come to an end unless we now destroy this 
republic, root and branch. The defeat and capture of our fleet, 
and the defeat of our army, on and near Lake Champlain, (of 
which I shall speak more particularly hereafter,) have not at all 
softened the language of the public prints. The T'imes newspa- 
per, of the 9th instant, calls it " a lamentable evil to the civi- 
lized would;" by which appellation these writers always mean 
kinglv governments. The writer then adds : " Next to the 
annihilation of the late military despotism in Europe, the subver- 
sion of that system of fraud and malignity, which constitutes the 
whole policy of the JefTersonian school, was an event to be de- 
voutly wished by every man in either hemisphere, who regards 
rational liberty, or the honourable intercourse of nations. It was 
an event to which we should have bent, and yet must bend all our 
energies. The American government must be displaced, or it 
will, sooner or later, plant its poisoned dagger in the heart of the 
parent sta/e." Sooner or later you see ! The gentleman looks 
into futurity. He does not even hint at any terms of peace. He 
plainly says, that we must displace the government of America; 
that is to say, change its form and nature ; subjugate the country, 
recolonize it, repossess it. Now mind, the opposition prints do 
not find fault with this. They do not deprecate such an object of 
the war. They surpass even their adversaries in exulting at the 
burnings and plunderings. They find fault that more mischief 
has not been done. 

Thus, then, we see what the nation regards as the object of the 
war. I say the nation, because the Morning Chronicle, which 
is the organ of the opposition, is just as bitter against America, 
as are the Times and the Courier. The truth is, that the only 
i opposition, as to the war, will arise out of our failures. The 
opposition will only blame the ministers for not having burnt more 
ships, plundered more towns, and done more mischief. There is, 
indeed, a sort of dread of the length of the war. People are a 
little disappointed that Mr. Madison is not yet deposed ; that the 
states have not yet separated ; that our sons of noble families are 
not yet wanted to go out as governors, and captains general, to 
Pennsylvania, New- York, Massachusetts, Virginia, &c. &c. ; that 
it will require another campaign to bring the deluded Americans 
to their senses ; that (and here is the pinch) the income tax will be 
wanted another year, and that another loan must be made. But 
" what is one more year of expense at the end of twenty-two years 
of war? And then it will give us such lasting peace and secu- 
rity." Thus is fear hushed ; and when, in addition, the thought 
of our defeated and captured frigates comes athwart the mind, the 



244 Letters of William Cobbeti, Esq. 

income tax is forgotten, and vengeance, war, and blood, is the 
cry. 

I now proceed to notice more particularly the events which 
have reached our knowledge since the date of my last article upon 
the subject. The plundering of Alexandria appears to have 
been the most successful of our enterprises. The American 
papers give our people great credit for their talent at the emptying 
of shops, and the embarkation of their contents, at which, to do 
our army and navy (especially the latter) but bare justice, we 
seem to have been uncommonly adroit. It seems, however, that, 
the squadron, which had the plunder aboard, had but a narrow 
escape in descending the Chesapeake ; but plunder there was, 
and a good deal of it ; and there can be little doubt that the suc- 
cess and profit of the enterprise will act as great encouragements 
to future undertakings of a similar description ; the only danger 
being, that the zeal of our commanders may push them on faster 
than a due regard to their safety might otherwise dictate. In an 
attempt against Baltimore we failed. That is to say, we met with 
a defeat. Not in the field I; but that is nothing to the purpose. 
We marched and sailed against the town, with all our forces, by 
sea and land, and we were compelled to retreat without doing any 
thing against that town. The town is safe ; and if the war end 
as this expedition has ended, all the world will agree that Ame- 
rica has defeated us. We may be sure of this ; and, therefore, 
we must carry on the war till we have subdued America ; or, we 
must make up our minds to the reputation of having been defeated 
by that republic. A pretty serious alternative ; but it is one which 
must and will exist, and of this we shall become more and more 
sensible every day, and particularly if we attend to what foreigners 
say upon the subject. 

The expedition of our troops and fleet against Passamaquoddy M 
and the Penobscot, is of a nature so trifling as hardly to be worthy 
of notice. That territory is no more important in America than 
the Isle of Sky is in Great Britain. It is a conquest, and so would 
the Isle of Sky be by an American privateer. What a figure does 
this conquest make in the Gazette ! What a grand affair it appears 
to be ! But, did a thousandth part of the people of England ever 
hear of Passamaquoddy or Penobscot before ? It is Baltimore, ! 
Charleston, Wilmington, Norfolk, Philadelphia, New-York, Bos- I 
ton, that they have heard of. They have been led to believe* 
that the city of Washington is to America what London is to 
England, or what Paris is to France. Nothing can be more falla- 
cious. There are, perhaps, two hundred towns in America, each 
of which is more populous and rich than Washington was, or than 
it was likely ever to be. Besides, we did not keep possession of 
Washington, as the Germans and Russians did of Paris. We did 
not remain there to erect a neiv government. We only set fire to 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 245 

a few buildings, and Ihen retreated. If an American privateer 
was to set fire to a few fishing huts on the coast of Wales, should 
we look upon it as a very brilliant affair? Yet this Washington 
enterprise was, by the Morning Chronicle, deemed the most gal- 
lant dash of the war ! In the " demonstration," as Admiral Coch- 
rane calls it, against Baltimore, General Ross was killed; and some 
of our papers call this fold play! "The fellow" says one of 
them, <4 took aim at the gallant Ross from behind some brushwood* 
Well, and what then 1 Do not our troops shoot from behind para- 
pets, and walls, and works of all sorts 1 And do we suppose that 
the Americans will not make use of a bush when it comes in their 
way ! If this crying tone be to be indulged in, we shall, I fear, 
cry our eyes out before the war be over. We have sent our 
bombs, and rockets, and rifles, and all sorts of means of destruc- 
tion ; our writers blame our ministers for not sending the means of 
knocking down towns fast enough ; and shall we abuse poor Jona- 
than if he avail himself of a bush, and of his skill at hitting a mark ? 
General Ross burnt their president's house, and a Yankee shot 
General Ross. These are things which naturally occur ; and, 
however we may lament the death of any officer, we must reflect 
that an invaded people will shoot at their invaders, unless the for* 
mer are ready to receive the latter as friends. 

Before I proceed to notice the late affair on and near Lake 
Champlain, there are some remarks to be bestowed on certain cha- 
racteristic fads which have leaked out, and on certain paragraphs 
in our newspapers. The Americans are accused of cowardice, 
for having retreated before inferior numbers, and taken shelier in 
Baltimore. Why was this cowardice ? The main object was to 
defend that great and rich city. The second was to annihilate 
our army and naval force. To make a long stand in the open 
country, with raw troops, against disciplined soldiers, was not the 
way to effect either of these purposes. The main object was ef- 
fected, and our retreat only, probably, prevented the effecting of 
the iatter. The Times newspaper, a few days ago, remarking on 
the cowardice of the Americans, contrasted with the bravery of 
our army and navy, observed that the cause was, that they had no 
feelings of patriotism ; that they cared nothing about their country. 
Now, what is the ground of this war ? Why, we complained that 
the Americans harboured deserters from our navy ; and they com- 
plained that we forced native Americans info our service. This 
fact is notorious to all the world. This fact is recorded in our 
own official documents. This fact makes a part of unquestionable 
history. Another fact has just been recorded by this same Times 
newspaper; namely, that two of our seamen were hanged, onboard 
the fleet in the Chesapeake, for attempting to desert to the enemy. 
It is also stated, in the same paper, (24th October,) that cboui 
one hundred and fifty of our soldiers deserted on the retreat from 






246 Letters of William Cobbetl, Es$, 

Platlsburgh. Now, let this empty boaster produce us instances like 
these on the side of the Americans if he can ; and if he cannot, 
let him acknowledge himself to be either a deluded fool or a de- 
luded knave. But has Jonathan shown no zeal for his country I 
What was that act of self-devotion which induced a man to ex- 
pose his property to certain, and himself to probable destruction, 
by shooting at General Ross, and killing his horse under him, in 
the city of Washington, after the town was in possession of ouv 
troops ? By what feeling was the man actuated who exposed 
his life for the sake of killing General Ross, and who must have 
been almost alone, since he was hidden behind some brushwood ? i 
To what are we to impute the capture of two hundred young men 
of the "best families in Baltimore," found in the foreground de, 
fence of their city ? Was greater courage, more desperate devo* 
tion to country, ever witnessed than at the battle of Chippewa and 
at Fort Erie ? How comes it that during the last campaign we have* 
lost more officers and men, out of twenty thousand employed* tha^ 
we ever lost in the European war out of one hundred i/ !J 

From what feeling was it that Mr. Madison called, as we h: Id 
he has, Mr. Rufus Khig to his councils, and from what feeling is 
it that Mr. King has accepted of the call? 

The Morning Chronicle, that chamelion of this war, now boastf 
that it foretold union against us. It never foretold it. It always 
urged on the war- It cr.Ued, and it was the first to call, the burn- 
ing of Washington a most gallant dash. However, it is now 
clear that we have completely united the whole country- The 
bombarding of Stoning lon t in Connecticut, and the plundering 
of Alexandria, in Virginia, have aone what all the workings of 
good sense and public spirit were not able to effect. Mr. Rufus 
King, whom we regarded as the rival and the implacable enemy of 
Mi. Madison, has taken a post under him for the defence of his 
country ; and we shall now see, that amongst those whom we 
thought our friends, we shall find the most resolute enemies, 
Stonington and Alexandria will be constantly before every Ame- 
rican's eyes. I always was opposed to the war, and to this mode 
of warfare especially. I knew it would produce that which it has 
produced. I knew it would render the breach too wide ever to 
be healed again. I knew that it would produce either the total 
subjugation of America, which I thought impossible, or our final 
defeat in the eyes of the world, with the ulterior consequence of 
seeing America a most formidable naval power, which the recent 
events on the borders of Canada seem but too manifestly to por- 
tend. It is quite surprising to what an extent this nation has been, 
and still is deluded, with regard to America, and to the nature and 
effect of this war. It is only fifteen days ago that the Courier 
newspaper contained the following paragraph : 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 24? 

" There were reports last night-of our having attacked and ta- 
ken New-London, and destroyed the city of Baltimore. Both 
these events are probable, but there are no arrivals from America 
later than the last despatches from Axlmiral Cochrane, dated on 
the 3d of last month. But as the wind has been fair for some 
days, we hourly expect a fresh arrival. It must bring news of 
great importance — intelligence from Canada — another attack upon 
Fort Erie — another conflict with General Brown — perhaps a bat- 
tle with the American General Izard — the further operations of 
Admiral Cochrane and General Ross — the result of the expedition 
'under General Sberbrooke — the operations of the Creek Indians, 
who have already made their appearance upon the frontiers of South 
Carolina — and "last, not least," the effect of our late attack upon 
the minis of he American people — the steps taken by Mr. Madi- 
bon, if he yet remains president, and the measures adopted by 
those stales that were in a ferment against the government, even 
>c ore the disaster, and were not indi posed to a separation from 
he other states* No arrival from America was ever expected with 
fiiore impatience." 

Well, the arrival has taken place. The impatiently-expected 
arrival has taken place. New-London has not been attacked. 
The attack on Baltimore has failed. General Ross is killed* 
Admiral Cochrane has arrived at Halifax for tire winter, with the 
plunder of Alexandria. The effect upon the minds of the Ame- 
rican people has been such as to unite even Mr. King with Mr. 
Madison, who " yet remains president." No new attack has been 
made oii Fort Erie, but the army of General Izard, at Pittsburgh, 
has been attacked by our commander in chief, with the " Wel- 
ington heroes" under him, with the " conquerors of France'' 
tinder him, while the American fleet was attacked by ours ; and 
lot only have both attacks failed, but we have experienced a 
nore complete defeat than, as far as I can recollect, we ever be- 
fore experienced, the notable affair of the Helder only excepted. 
Thinking Johnny Bull ! You, who were so eager to give the 
Yankees a drubbing — you, who were so full of fight that nothing 
put another war would appease you — pray, can you tell me how 
»t is that our ministers, who have given us such exact accounts 
ibout the " gallant dashes" at Washington and Alexandria, and 
who have published such loads of despatches and proclamations 
■fcbout the conquest of the Penobscot territory, not equal in popu- 
I .ation to the parish of St.. Martin's in the Fields ; can you tell me 
i -iiow it has happened that this ministry has not received, or, at least, 
i has not published, the account of the land and water battles at 
Plattsburgh and on Lake Champlain, though we have Sir George 
Prevost's general order, issued after the battle, and though we 
have numerous extracts from Canada papers, dated many days 
later than the date of the order ! Cannot you tell me this, thinking 



£4C LettefS of William Cobbeli, Esq. 

Johnny Bull ! you who, when you heard of the capture of Wash- 
ington City, were for sending out a viceroy to the American 
states? You, who called the Americans cowardly dogs, and hail- 
ed the prospect of a speedy release from the income tax, and the 
payment of the national debt by the sale of lands, and by taxes 
raised in America ? Well, then, in waiting patiently for this offi- 
cial account, we must content ourselves with what the newspapers 
tell us they have extracted from the papers of Canada. Letters 
extracted from the American papers make our loss dreadful in- 
deed. General Macomb, the American commander, is repre- 
sented to have written to his father, at New-York, telling him that 
he had killed or taken 3,000 of our army, and that he expected 
to destroy one half of it. Our newspapers s;rid that this was false. 
They also said that it was false that we had any thing like a fri- 
gate on Lake Champlain, though it now appears that we had a 
ship actually mounting 32 guns, and that the largest of the Ame- 
rican vessels was rated '28 guns, and carried, as we say, 30 guns. 
But let us take, for the present, the account of the Canada paper?, 
and look with impatience, but with becoming humility, to his ma- 
jesty's ministers for further information. Thus, then, speak the 
Canadian printers ; thus speak the bitterest enemies of America : 

Montreal, September 15. 
"You have herewith a copy of the general order of the i 3th 
instant, to understand which, requires more than being able to 
read it. There never was, perhaps, such a composition ; for, 
without knowing the result, one might be led to think we had 
gained a victory. Report says that our hero, on passing some of 
the troops on the road, was hissed by them ; and further, and 
which I believe to be true, that when the order was given for re- 
treating, General Power rode up to the commander in chief, and 
begged the order for retreating might be recalled, as General Bris- 
bane was about storming the fort, and would have possession of it 
in a few minutes — the reply, it is said, was—" My orders must 
be obeyed," and then a general retreat took place. I do not know 
with any certainty, having heard no one speak on the subject, but 
it will not surprise me if we have lost, one way and another, in 
this disgraceful affair, not less than 800 men. It was a fair battle 
between the fleets ; the fort did not play on the Confiance and 
Linnet, as has been stated. Captain Pring, in the Linnet, though 
aground, is said to have fought his vessel for a considerable time 
after the Confiance had struck." 

Quebec, September 16. 

" Stories become blacker and blacker respecting our disgrace 
and misfortunes at Pittsburgh. Lieutenant Drew, of the Linnet, 
is come in here, being paroled for fourteen days ; he states the 
loss of the fleet to have been, in a great measure, owing to the land 
forces not storming the American fort; there were only 1,400 men 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. .249 

in it, under General Macomb, who informed Captain Pring, of the 
Linnet, that every thing was prepared to surrender on the advance 
of the British army. Report says, that General Robinson is under 
arrest; that Generals Brisbane and Power had tendered their 
swords to Sir George Prevost; and that Colonel Williams, of the 
13th, had declared he would never draw his sword again while 
under the command of Sir George. It is said Sir George is gone 
to Kingston." 

Montreal, September 17. 

"My last letter to you was of date the 14th instaut, when I had 
the mortification to inform you of our fleet on Lake Champlain 
being entirely defeated and taken by the enemy, at Plattsburgh, 
about seventy miles from this place, and when we had an army of 
14 or 15,000 regular and brave troops, who only wished to be 
allowed to storm the enemy's fort, and which every body says 
would easily have been accomplished, had any other person had 
the command than Sir George Prevost. We have suffered more 
disgrace from the incapacity of this man than we will retrieve for 
months to come, let our exertions be ever so great. There were 
six of our officers killed on board of our vessels, and twenty are 
made prisoners ; and besides, we must have lost near 1,000 brave 
men in kille J, wounded, and prisoners. It will not surprise me if 
the expedition has cost about 500,000/. Report now says that Sir 
George Prevost is going up to Kingston to attack Sackett's Har- 
bour, but I am sure he will not be a welcome visiter in the Upper 
Province. The army retreated most precipitately, and are, in 
general, at the posts they occupied before the expedition took 
place, with the loss of about 150 deserters on the retreat, beside 
a vast loss in provisions and munitions of war. The Wellingtonian 
soldiers say that the hunters and the hounds are capital, but that, 
the huntsman and the whipper-in are two fools — meaning, I con- 
sider, Sir George Prevost and his Adjutant General, Major E. 
Baynes." 

" We have inserted the general order relating to the proceedings 
of the army and flotilla at Plattsburgh. Candour must compel 
every one to confess, that the result of the late operalions has 
fallen short of even " moderate expectations." The battle lasted 
an hour and a half. The force of each squadron, we are informed, 
stands thus : British, one ship, mounting, in all, 32 guns ; one brig, 
in all, 20 guns ; two sloops of 70 tons, each 10 guns, and ten 
gun-boats. American, one ship, rated 28 guns, carrying 30 ; 
one brig, 24; one strong schooner, 18; three sloops, each 10 
guns; and twenty-four gun-boats. The crews, tonnage, and 
weight of metal, are estimated at one fourth superior on the side 
of the Americans ; and we have no reason to doubt our informa- 
tion. We have always considered offensive warfare as the best 

32 



250 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

mode of securing peace ; and recent humiliation has not clanged 
our tone. We may be called to defend points which have, hither- 
to, not been thought of; and, consequently, the late retreat may 
not have been ill advised: the fort at Platlsburgh should, how- 
ever, have been stormed. That part of the labour would have 
cost less blood and embarrassment than was sustained in the re- 
treat ; a retreat that will tend to rouse the energies of the enemy. 
We might have taken 2,000 prisoners, a fine train of artillery, 
and immense stores. 

" We are not military men, but we call on " every experienced 
officer" to support or contradict us. If we are wrong, we shall 
take a pride in confessing our ignorance. The scientific, brave 
generals, officers, and soldiers, of the duke of Wellington's army, 
and the others, who have before fought in our cause in the Cana- 
das, did every thing which depended on them to support the 
noble efforts of their brothers on the water. That distinguished 
officer, General Robinson, who has been twice wounded this year 
on the other continent, with part of his gallant brigade, had 
braved all danger in an assault. Some of the picquets of the fort 
were torn away, and a few minutes more would have given up 
the fortification, witb an immense train of artillery, into our hands, 
and every American must have fallen, or been made prisoner. It 
was thought necessary to check the ardour of the troops, and we 
must now instantly redouble our energies to obtain command of the 
lake, or with humility await our future destiny." 

Thus, then, according to our own accounts, the Americans had 
but 1,500 regulars and 6,000 militia, wherewith to make face 
against 15,000 British troops, commanded by four major generals 
and Sir George Prevost, a general of long experience, and of great 
reputation. On the lake we say that the Americans had & fourth 
more than we. Suppose they had ! I do not admit the fact ; but 
suppose they had. A fourth ! how long is it since we thought a 
fourth too much ? Every one knows, that Sir Robert Calder was 
disgraced for not pursuing double his force. We are become very 
nice calculators of force. We shall soon hear, I suppose, that we 
ought always to keep aloof, unless we can count the guns, and know 
that we have a superiority. Fifteen thousand men, seven of them 
from the army of " the conqueror of France !" And these drew 
off from the presence of 7,500 Yankees, to whom they were about to 
give a good drubbing ! Why, it will make such anoise in the world ! 
It will make such a buzz; it will astound " honest John Bull," who 
was, only the last market day, charging his glass, and bragging 
about sending out a viceroy. The whole fleet! What, all! Our 
little ones and all ! All at one fell swoop! It will make Johnny 
Bull scratch his noddle in search of brains. The chuckling of 
honest John at the burning of Washington, the plundering of Alex 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 251 

i-mdria, and bombarding of Stonington, will be changed into grum- 
bling, I am afraid. But come, Johnny, you must not grumble. 
You were for the war. It is your own war. The ministers are not 
to blame. You insisted upon chastising and humbling the Ame- 
ricans. You would have Mr. Madison deposed. You said he 
had sided with Napoleon. You said what was false, Johnny ; 
but that's no matter. You called upon the ministers to depose 
him. This I will always say, and can at any time prove against 
you. The consequences of this victory of the Americans must be 
very important. Sir George Prevost is blamed, and, indeed, 
abused, while the officers of the fleet, the defeated and captured 
fleet, are complimented to the skies. When will this folly cease ? 
When shall we cease to be so basely unjust? What would have 
been said of Sir George, if he had had his army blown into the 
air, or cut to pieces? If he and all his army had been captured, 
what would have been said of him and of that army ? Yet this 
has happened to the fleet, and the fleet are complimented! While 
he, who has saved a great part of his army, notwithstanding the 
defeat of the fleet, is censured and abused; is called a fool, and 
almost a coward ! Sir George Prevost is neither fool nor coward. 
He is a man of great merit, is of long standing in the service, has 
served with great success ; and he has shown great ability in be- 
ing able, with so small a force as he has hitherto had, to preserve 
a country generally inhabited by a people by no means zealous in. 
their own defence, or rather that of their territory. Let any one 
look at the situation of Lake Champlain. It extends in length 
one hundred and fifty miles, perhaps, running above the state of 
Vermont, and entering our province of Lower Canada in a line 
pointing towards Quebec. It was very desirable to drive the 
Americans from the command of this lake, which may be called 
their high road to Montreal and Quebec. It is the great channel 
for their array, their provisions, their guns, to pass along ; and, 
completely the sole masters of this lake, it is not easy to conceive 
how they are to be kept from Quebec without a very large army 
from England. If the Americans had been defeated upon the 
lake, or had been compelled to retire to the Vermont end of it, then 
to have driven back their army also, would have been an object 
of vast importance ; nor would great loss in the attack, on our 
part, have been an irretrievable loss, or been followed by any ex- 
tremely great danger. But when our fleet was not only defeated, 
but actually captured, and gone off to double the force of the Ame- 
ricans, even the certain defeat of their army could have led to no 
beneficial result. We must still have abandoned Plattsburgh ; the 
fleet of the enemy would have speedily brought another army to 
any point that they wished, and would have placed that army 
fifty or sixty miles nearer Quebec than our army would have been. 



- 



•Ib'A Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

But if by any chance we had been defeated by land, after the de- 
feat on the water, the loss of all Canada would, and must have 
been the consequence, if the Americans had chosen to conquer it, 
which, I dare say, they would. Therefore, it appears to me, that 
Sir George Prevost acted the only part which a sensible man, un- 
der such circumstances, could have for one moment thought of. 
He risked every thing in the attack, and if he succeeded, he gain- 
ed nothing worth having. The loss of half his army, which was 
the case of the storming of Fort Erie, would have exposed him, 
even in case of success, to great peril. The Americans could 
have immediately poured an array (by means of their fleet) more 
numerous than his into Lower Canada ; they could have poured 
in, all the winter, militia and volunteers, from the populous and 
brave republican state of Vermont, while our governor bad, and 
could have, no hopes of receiving reinforcements until the middle 
of next summer. For, supposing us to have spare troops at Hali- 
fax, they could hardly sail thence before the middle of October, 
and before they might reach Quebec, the ice in the St. Lawrence 
might have scuttled or foundered their vessels. The St. Law- 
rence, our only channel to Canada from England or from Halifax, 
is full of mountains of ice till the month of June. I have seen a 
large mountain of ice ofFthe mouth of that immense river on the 
15th of June. I believe that no vessels of any considerable size 
ever attempt the navigation of that river much before June. In 
what a situation, then, would our governor have been placed if he 
had met with any serious loss in the storming of the fort at Platts- 
burgh ? And yet he is censured and abused for retreating, after 
the total capture of our cooperating fleet, while the officers of lhat 
fleet are praised to the skies. About three weeks ago, juyi alter 
we heard of the burning of Washington City, I met Sir George 
Prevost's wagon between Portsmouth and Hay ant. The carter 
was whistling along by the side of some nice fat horses. I could 
not help observing to my son how much happier this fellow was 
than his master, who had to govern Canadians and fight Ame- 
ricans. It is easy to talk about the "heroes of Toulouse" form- 
ing part of his army. The " heroes of Toulouse" are said to 
have remonstrated against the retreat. They are said to have ex- 
pressed a desire to storm the fort. Sir George Prevost would, I 
dare say, have been of the same mind, if he had had reason to sup- 
pose that one half of the people within, were, as the people of 
Toulouse were, ready to join him. But he well knew the con- 
trary. He knew that he had to get into the fort through a river 
of blood. He had just seen the fate of our fleet ; and he knew, as 
"the heroes of Toulouse" might have known, that the men in the 
fort were of the same stamp as those upon the water. We now 
find, from a detailed statement in the American papers, coming from 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 253 

authority, and accompanied by an account of killed and wounded 
in the naval battle on the lake, that our fleet had 93 guns and 
J, 050 men, while that of America had but 86 guns and 820 men; 
our fleet was all taken but the gun-boats, carrying sixteen guns 
amongst them all. And yet the naval people are praised, while 
Sir George Prevost is censured. Whence arises this injustice ? 
Whence this security of the navy from all censure, and even from 
all criticism ? Do we feel that to censure any part of it is to dis- 
cover to the world that it is not always infallible ? Do we suppose, 
thaf in discovering our fears of its inferiority, in point of quality, to 
that of America, we shall make the world perceive the lamentable 
fact ? Are we fools enough to hope that the history of this battle 
can be hidden from France and the rest of Europe ? Why, then, 
this injustice ? Why not blame the naval part of the forces, if 
blame must fall somewhere ? I see no necessity for its falling any 
where, for my part. We had eighty-four men killed and one hun- 
dred and ten wounded, which shows that there was some fighting. 
We had double the number killed and wounded that Jonathan had, 
which shows that Jonathan was the more able bodied and active 
of the two, A letter was, a little while ago, published as from 
one of our officers in the Chesapeake Bay, saying, that Jonathan 
must now look pretty sharply about him. It appears from the 
result of this battle, that Jonathan does look pretty sharply about 
bim. Now, then, let us hear what effect this event has had upon 
the Times newspaper, which, only a few weeks ago, insisted on it, 
that the American government must be displaced, that the Ame- 
ricans were cowards, that they cared nothing about their country, 
and that the states would soon divide, and come over, one at a 
time, to the parent country. Now let us hear what this torch 
bearer of the war, this trumpet of fire and sword, provoker to 
every act of violence and cruelty — let us hear what he now has to 
say ; he who has, for three years past, been urging the govern- 
ment on to this disastrous contest. 

•" Halifax papers to the 6th instant, New- York to the 22d ulti- 
mo, and Boston to the 25th, have been received. There is no 
dissembling that the popular outcry in Canada against Sir George 
Provost's conduct, on account of the late operations against 
Pittsburgh, is very general and very loud. We cannot pretend 
to determine on the talents of this officer, or on the wisdom of his 
plans ; but we recur to the suggestions which we made at a very 
early period of the campaign, and regret exceedingly that one of 
our most experienced generals from Spain was not sent at once, 
flushed with victory, from the fields of Toulouse to the heart 
of the United States. Was it beneath the dignity of Lord Hill,, 
or even of the duke of Wellington ? Fatal prejudice ! To despise s 
to irritate, and, after all, not to subdue our adversaries, is the 
worst and weakest of all policy. Now we have reduced ourselves 



1 



254 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

to this dilemma, of being obliged to carry our point by main force, 
or to retire from the contest ten times worse than we began it, 
with the mere postponement of an abstract question, which has 
no reference to our present state of peace, with a fund of the bit- 
terest animosity laid up against us in future, with our fag dis- 
graced on the ocean and on the lakes, and with the laurels withered 
at Plattsburgh, which were so hardly, but so gloriously earned, 
in Portugal, and Spain, and France. The spirit of the British 
nation cannot sloop to the latter alternative ; and, therefore, at 
whatever risk, at whatever expense, we must embrace the former. 
The invaluable year 1814, when the treachery of America was 
fresh in the minds of the European powers, is past. Already do 
they begin to relax in their deep and merited contempt of the 
servile hypocrite, Madison. Already do they turn a compas- 
sionating look on the smoking rafters of the would be capitol. 
Presently, perhaps, the Russian cabinet may forget that the em- 
press Catherine, to her dying day, treated the Americans as 
rebels to their legal sovereign ; or the Spanish court, while it is 
endeavouring to rivet its yoke on Buenos Ayres, may join with 
the philosophers of Virginia in contending for the liberty of the 
seas. Such, and still greater political inconsistencies we have 
before now witnessed. Therefore, let time be taken by the fore- 
lock; let not another campaign be ivasted in diversions and 
demonstrations ; let not another autumnal sun go down in dis- 
grace to the bkitish arms. Commodore Macdonough's 
laconic note savours a little of affectation ; but we are sorry he 
has so favourable an opportunity for displaying the brevity of his 
style to advantage. General Macomb's orders, however, are 
sufficiently lengthy ; and, unfortunately, he also has some un- 
pleasant information to give us. He states that 14,000 British 
veterans have been foiled by 1,500 American regulars, and some 
few militia, the whole not exceeding 2,500 men. If he is correct 
in these estimates, it is surely high time that we should either 
give up teaching the Americans war, or send them some better 
instructors." 

The former is the best, be assured ! Why should commodore 
Macdonough be charged with affectation, because he writes a 
short letter ? He has no sons, or cousins, or patron's sons or 
cousins, or bastards, to recommend for the receipts of presents 
or pensions. But I have, at present, no room for further com- 
ment on this article. I will resume the subject in my next. 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 255 



AMERICAN WAR. 

Negotiations at Ghent ; measures of the American congress; 
battle near Fort Erie; Lake Ontario; despatches about the Lake 
Champlain battles ; British attack on Fort Mobile. — The nego- 
tiations at Ghent, though kept a secret from Johnny Bull, have 
reached him, as most other disclosures do, through the tell-tale 
press of America. Oh ! that republic, and her press ! How many- 
things the world knows through them! Is there no way of re- 
ducing them to silence ? Take it in hand, good people, and see 
if there be no means of accomplishing it. These negotiations show 
that Jonathan, poor despised Jonathan, is not much less smart 
in the cabinet than he is in the field. Certainly nothing was ever 
better managed than this negotiation on the part of Jonathan. He 
pricked our brains, and then would do nothing until he heard what 
the people of America should say. The ground of Messrs. Bay- 
ard, Gallatin, &c. was very reasonable ; for how could they be ex- 
pected to have instructions relating to matters never before matters 
of dispute ? The substance of the disclosure is this : we asked, as 
a preliminary, that the republicans should give up part of their 
territory, including those very lakes, and their own borders of 
those lakes, whereon they have defeated us, and which are their 
only secure barrier against us and our Indian allies. The presi- 
dent, of course, lost no time in laying these papers before the 
congress, who are said to have heard them with unanimous indigr 
nation ; and the Times newspaper tells us that " these papers 
have been made the means of uniting against us the whole Ame- 
rican people." Thou great ass, they were united against us be- 
; fore. There were only a handful of " serene highnesses" and 
I" Cossacks" in Massachusetts, the acquaintance of Mr. Henry, 
who were not united against us. This, I suppose, is the shift that 
: you resort to in order to cover your disgrace, in having to an- 
nounce that Mr. Madison is u yet" president, and that he is not 
I even " impeached." There is one passage in the last despatch 
of Mr. Monroe, worthy of great attention. He tell? the plenipo- 
L tentiaries that " there is much reason to presume that Great Bri- 
i tain has now other objects than those for which she has hitherto 
? professed to contend." Probably he built this presumption on 
i the language of our public prints, or on the report of a speech in 
I parliament, attributed by those newspapers to Sir Joseph Yorke, 
one of the lords of the admiralty, in which report the reporters 
made Sir Joseph say, that we had Mr. Madison to depose before 
we could lay down our arms. This report was published some 
lime in May or June; and in August Mr. Monroe's despatch 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq* 



was written. However, be the ground of presumption what it 
would, Mr. Madison does not seem to have changed his tone on 
account of it ; and there can be no doubt that the people must 
have been greatly inflamed by such an impudent declaration. 
This shows what mischiefs newspapers can do. The war is, in 
great part, the war of the Times and the Courier. Let them, 
therefore, weep over the fate of our fleets and armies in Canada, and 
at Mobile. The measures of the American congress seem to be 
of a very bold character, and well calculated for a war of long 
continuation. The president has not been afraid to lay bare all 
the wants of the government, and to appeal to the sense and pa- 
triotism of the people. From every thing that I can discover, the 
noblesse of Massachusetts will not be able to prevent, or even im- 
pede, any of these measures. Johnny Bull is, in last Saturday's 
Gazette, treated to an account of the late battle near Fort Erie, 
from which Jonathan sallied out upon General Drummond'sarmy. 
According to this account, our loss was as follows : 

KILLED. 



115 



Captains 


• 


• • 


1 


Lieutenants 


• 


• • 


2 


Sergeants 


. 


• • i 


7 


Rauk and file 




• * 

WOUNDED. 


105 


Lieutenant colonels 


• 


• • • 


3 


Captains 


• 


• • • 


3 


Lieutenants 


• 


• ♦ ■ 


10 


Ensigns 


. 


• • • 


1 


Sergeants 


• 


• • * 


13 


Drummers . 


• 


• • • 


1 


Rank arid file 


• 


• • * 

MISSING. 


147 

— 1 


Majors . 


• 


. . . 


2 


Captains 


. 


. . 


. . 4 


Lieutenants 


. 


. . 


3 


Ensigns 


. 


• • • 


2 


Adjutants . 


• 


. 


1 


Surgeons . 


"• 




1 


Sergeants 


. 


• 


21 


Drummers 


« 


a . 


2 


Rank and file 


• 


. 


280 



178 



-316 
609 



A most bloody battle ! The armies, on both sides, are hand- 
fuls of men. These are battles of a very different descriptor 
from those of the Peninsula, as it was called. General Drum- 
raond complains of the overwhelming force of the enemy. Hot 
came he to besiege him then ? It was a sally, observe, on the 
part of the Americans ; and it is the first time I ever heard of a sal- 
lying party being stronger than the army besieging them. In the 
teeth of facts like these, the malignant ass of the Times newspaper 
has the impudence to say, with as much coolness as if he hac 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 25? 

never heard of these things: " A peace between Great Britain 
and the United States can properly be made no where but in Ame- 
rica. The conferences should be carried on at New- York, or 
Philadelphia, having previously fixed at those places the head- 
quarters of a Picton or a Hill.*' If Mr. Madison had this writer 
in his pay, the latter could not serve the republican cause more 
effectually than he is now doing. On Lake Ontario, our newspa- 
pers now say, that we have a decided superiority of force. Very 
well. Let us bear that in mind. Let us have no new versions 
after a battle shall have taken place. The official accounts rela- 
tive to the affairs at Plattsburgh and Lake Champlain, are the most 
curious, certainly, that ever were seen. They consist of a mere 
account of the number of killed, wounded, and missing, up to the 
time that our army quitted, or was about to quit, Plattsburgh, that 
is to say, (mind the dates !) up to the fourteenth of September* 
Not a word have we about the retreat from Plattsburgh, uor about 
the battle on Lake Champlain, though we have an account from 
Sir George Prevost, dated on the fourth of October. Mark that 
well. The despatch is said to have been dated on the eleventh, at 
Plattsburgh, but it contains the account of the losses to the four- 
teenth ! Let us hear the apology of the Times newspaper : 
" The return from the sixth to the fourteenth of September being; 
enclosed in the despatch bearing date the eleventh, is easily ac- 
counted for, from the circumstance of that despatch not having 
been made up for some time after. Although despatches have 
arrived of a later date from Sir George Prevost, none have been, 
received containing any account of his retreat. Private letters, 
however, contradict the American statements of precipitation and 
embarrassment in Sir George'B movements on that occasion. The 
despatch of the eleventh, before mentioned, refers to the action on 
the lake, but it is not thought proper to publish this until an offi- 
cial account of the action reaches the admiralty." Very well, 
now, let us grant that it would not be proper to publish Sir George's 
account of the action on the lake, though it was such a lumping 
concern as to require but little nautical skill to describe it ; yet 
here is no reason at all given for not publishing Sir George's ac- 
count of his own retreat, other than its not having been received, 
which is most wonderful, seeing that it is the invariable practice to 
enclose duplicates and triplicates of every preceding despatch,, 
when forces are at such a distance. How came Sir George, in 
his despatch of the 4th of October, not to send a duplicate of the 
account of his retreat, if he had sent that account before ? And, 
if he had not sent it before, how came he not to send it along with 
his despatch of the 4th of October ? The solving of these ques- 
tions will be very good amusement for the winter evening3 of 
Johnny Bull, who was so anxious " to give the Yankees a good 
drubbing" and who thinks nothing at all of the property tax 

33 



253 Letters of William Cobbeit, Es'q. 

when compared wilh so desirable an object. Reader, pray \t% 
me bring you back to the affair of Pittsburgh. It is situated on 
the side of Lake Champiain, about twenty-five miles within the 
United Stales. There is a fortress near it, in which Jonathan 
had 1,500 regulars, and 5 or 6,000 militia. Against this fort, and 
force, Sir George Prevost, with 14 or 15,000 men, marched early 
in September, the fort being to be attacked by water by our fleet 
at the same time that our army attacked it by land. The attack 
was made, but the American fleet came up, attacked ours, beat 
and captured the whole of the ships. Sir George Prevost, see- 
ing the fa-te of the fleet, retreated speedily into Canada, was fol- 
lowed, as the Americans say, by their army, who harassed it, took 
some cannon, a great quantity of stores, and many prisoners, and 
received from the British army a great number of deserters, who 
quitted Sir George Prevost, and went over to them. This is the 
most serious part of the subject ; and, therefore, as the Montreal 
newspapers had stated that we lost 150 men by desertion, as the 
Americans made them amount to a great many hundreds ; and 
as Mr. Whitbread, in the debate in parliament, a few days ago, 
said he had heard that they amounted to 2,000, and that, too, of 
Wellinglonians, the people were very anxious to see Sir George 
Prevost's account of his retreat. The ministers said that Sir 
George Prevost had said nothing about desertion ; and that, of 
course, he would have mentioned it if it had been true. But the 
Times newspaper now tells us that Sir George has sent no account 
of his retreat ; or, at least, that none has been received. Accord- 
ing to the ministers, Sir George's account has been received, and 
no mention is made in it of desertion. According to the Times, 
Sir George's account has n&t been received. We must believe 
the ministers, of course, and must set the Times down for a pro- 
mulgator of wilful falsehoods, But, then, there is a rub left ; if 
the account of the retreat is come, why not publish it I This 
is another riddle, Johnny Bull, for your winter evenings' amuse- 
ment. The attack of our forces on Mobile, furnishes a new feature 
io the war. We have before seen the two parties engaged, fri- 
gate to frigate, brig to brig, sloop to sloop, and, in two instances* 
fleet to fleet. We have seen them on land, alternately besieged 
and besieging. We now see the Americans in a fort, containing 
only 138 men, attacked by a combined naval and military arma- 
ment ; as to the result of which, after describing the scene of ac- 
tion, we must, for the present, take their own official account, 
Point Mobile is situated on the main land, on the border of the 
Gulf of Mexico, not far from the mouth of the great river Mis- 
sissippi. On this point is a fort, called Fort Bowyer, belonging 
to the republican enemy, to the attack of which our squadron pro- 
ceeded in September last. [Here follow the American official 
accounts.] 






Letters of William Cobbed, Esq. 239 

I extract these articles from the Times newspaper ; and yet, in 
the face of these facts, in defiance of these red-hot balls, the 
consummate ass would make no peace, except at A 7 ew- York or 
Philadelphia, they being first the head-quarters of a Piclon or a 
'Hill ! This is as good a lift as this writer could have given to Mr- 
Madison, and as hard a blow as he could have given to the noblesse 
of Massachusetts, on whom he and the rest of our war tribe had 
built, and do still build, their hopes of ultimate success. Let them 
look at the attitude of New York and Philadelphia. I do not say 
that it is impossible to get at either of those cities, with bomb-shells 
or rockets ; but I am quite satisfied, that it would require a very 
large army to set foot in either of them, even for the purpose of 
burning and then quitting them, in safety. I will now make an 
observation or two with regard to public opinion as to the Ame- 
rican war. People are disappointed. The continuance of the 
property tax pinches. But would they have the luxury of 
war without paying for it? No, no; pay they must; or they 
must put up with what they have gotten, and see the stars and 
stripes waving in every sea. They would have war. War was 
their cry. They have it, and they must pay for it. 



TO THE COSSACK PRIESTHOOD OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

Gentlemen, 

I Perceive that there were held, in your state, and at your 
instigation, and under your guidance and ministry, solemn fasts 
and thanksgivings on account of the entrance of the Cossacks 
into Paris, and of the fall of Napoleon. Hence, I perceive, that 
you are called the Chaplains of the Cossacks ; and sometimes, 
the Cossack Prieslhood. That you, who used to be regarded as 
some of the best men in your republic, and the purity of whose 
religious motives were never even doubted, should have exposed 
yourself to the application of such titles, I extremely regret to 
hear. But it is not my business to give way to private feelings 
upon such an occasion. It is for me, as far as I am able, and as 
I dare, to make truth known to the world ; and as you, in this 
case, appear to me to have shown a more decided hostility to 
truth than any other set of men of whom I have heard, no*t ex- 
cepting the editors of the London newspapers, it is natural for me 
to address myself to you upon the subject. 

The religion, of which you profess to be teachers, is the Pres- 
byterian. I believe, that there are three or four sorts of Pres- 
byterian Christians. To which of these sorts you belong, or whe- 
ther some of you are of the one sort and some of each of the 
others, I know not. Nor is it material ; it being well known, that, 






260 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

substantially, all these sorts are the same, and that the religion you 
profess has existed, anil has been the generally prevailing reli- 
gion in the four eastern states of the republic, where there has 
been born and reared up an industrious, sober, humane, gentle, 
kind, brave, and free people, distinguished heretofore, above all 
others, for their right and clear understanding of the principles of 
liberty, and for their zeal and undaunted resolution in her cause. 
Whether the people would have been as good, better, or worse, 
without the religion that you have taught ; whether, discarding, as 
is the manner of some men, all mysteries, and believing in nothing 
Ihe truth of which cannot be substantiated by undeniable facts, or 
by incontrovertible argument, they would have been as good, bet- 
ter, or worse, than they are, is a question, which I will not meddle 
with. But you will excuse me, if I observe, that, while this can 
possibly be made a question amongst rational men, you, who re- 
ceive pay for your teaching of religion, ought to be very careful 
to excite no doubt in the minds of mankind as to the purity of 
your views, or the sincerity of your faith. 

Your recent conduct does, however, appear to have excited 
such doubts in the minds of your countrymen. In my mind it 
has done more. It has convinced me that your motives are any 
thing rather than purs ; and that your professions are a mere pre- 
tence ; a trick to enable you to live without labour upon the earn- 
ings of those who do labour, just as are the tricks of monks and 
friars, and of all other imposers on popular credulity, from the 
golden-palmed showman of the lady of Loretto down to the lousy- 
cowled consecrators of halfpenny strings of beads, and the itine- 
rant protestant bawlers, whose harangues are wholly incomprehen- 
sible, until they come round with their hat to collect the means of 
recruiting the belly. All the zeal of impostors of every kind ; 
all their calumnies of others ; all their innumerable persecutions of 
those who have endeavoured to withdraw the people from their 
degrading influence, have had this great end in view : to extract 
and secure to themselves the means of living well, without labour, 
out of the earnings of those who do labour. I am very sorry to 
ascribe such a motive to you, whose forefathers fled to a wilderness 
rather than violate the dictates of their conscience ; but truth com- 
pels me to say, that you appear to have no claim to an exemption 
from the general charge. Yet, I am not so unjust as to suppose, 
much less to hold forth to the world, that all the priests of Mas- 
sachusetts are of this description ; but, as I find no account of 
any protest, on the part of any of ihe priests, against the odious 
and detestable celebrations and fasts before mentioned, I shall 
stand fully justified for not making any particular exceptions. If 
any of the priests of Massachusetts feel sore under the appella- 
tion which I have given them, they ought to direct their resent- 
ment against those whose conduct has brought it upon them, and 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 



261 



not against me, unless they are able to show that I charge them 
unjustly. 

Had you, indeed, confined your thanksgivings to the release of 
certain countries of Europe from the arms of an invader, a con- 
queror, an oppressor, an ambitious despot, who, instead of giving 
liberty, added to the civil sufferings of some of the nations whom 
he overran, having first extinguished republican government, and 
along with it political liberty in France, where the people had put 
power into his hands to be used in the cause of freedom. Had 
you held solemn thanksgivings on account of the triumph of the 
Cossacks, and their associates, in the cause of the civil and poli- 
tical independence of nations, you would not have excited indig- 
nation in the breast of any reasonable man ; for, though some men 
would have differed with you in opinion upon that point ; though 
some men would have said, as some men thought, that the con- 
queror could not long have held under his Bway so extensive an 
empire as he was grasping; that, in a few years, the several coun- 
tries of which it was composed, beginning with France, would, in 
all human probability, throw off his yoke, and form themselves into 
independent states, freed from all his, as well as all former shackles ; 
and that, thus, he would, in the end, be found to have been instru- 
mental in establishing liberty, civil as well as religious, in every 
part of Europe where it did not before exist ; though some men 
would have said this, and would, of course, not have joined you 
in your thanksgivings for the victories of the Cossacks, no just 
and considerate man could have ceusured you, so long as you con- 
fined your thanksgivings to the aforementioned objects. But 
when, in your prayers and sermons, you called the Cossacks, and 
others engaged on the same side, " the bulwark of your religion ;" 
when, with the Reverend Mr. PARISH at your head, you called 
Napoleon anti-Christ, and bawled out songs of praise to the Cos- 
sacks and their associates for pulling hirn down ; and especially 
when you maliciously threw on your political opponents the charge 
of being the abettors of anti-Christ; then you excited the indig- 
nation of all those who did not turn with disgust from your horrid 
ejaculations and harangues. 

It there was one trait, above all others, by which your ser- 
mons and prayers, until of late years, were characterized, it was 
by your zealous, your violent, not to say foul mouthed attacks on 
the Romish Pontiff, faith, and worship. You had no scruple to 
represent the pope as anti-Christ, and as the scarlet whore of 
Babylon, covered with abominations. How clearly did you prove 
that he was the beast of the revelations ; that he had made the 
world drunk with his fornications ; that his seven heads were the 
seven hills on which Rome is situated ; his ten horns the ten prin- 
cipal Catholic sovereigns of Europe ; and that his colour was 
scarkt, because it was dyed in the blood of the saints ? Was there 



262 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

a sermon, was there a prayer, that issued from your Up.?, in which 
you did not call on the Lord for vengeance on this " man of sin," 
and in which you did not describe the Catholic religion as idola- 
trous, blasphemous, diabolical, and as evidently tending to the 
eternal damnation of millions and millions of precious souls ? 

Every one who shall read what I am now writing, must acknow- 
ledge, that this description of your conduct, in regard to the 
Romish church, is far short of the mark. What, then, have you 
now to say in justification of your recent conduct ? Where is your 
justification for your violent attacks on Napoleon and his family, 
to say nothing, at present, of your thanksgivings for the restora- 
tion of the ancient order of things, or, in your own language, " the 
ancient and venerable institutions?" Where is your justification 
for your attacks on the Buonapartes 1 Olhers, indeed, might con- 
sistently attack them. Such as thought that the church of Home 
and her power were good things ; or, such as regarded one religion 
as good as another, might consistently attack Buonaparte. But 
you ! you, who professed the opinions above described ; how can 
you apologize to the world, and to your abused flocks, for the 
part which you have taken against him ? 

The case, with regard to you, stands thus : There was, before 
Buonaparte's power commenced, existing in Europe a system of 
religion, or, as you called it, irreligion, having at the head of it 
a Sovereign Pontiff, with innumerable Cardinals, Bishops, Vicars- 
General, Abbots, Priors, Monks, Friars, Secular Priests, &c. &c. 
under him. To this body you ascribed false doctrines, tricks, 
frauds, and cruelties without end. You charged them with the 
propagation of idolatry and blasphemy ; with keeping the people 
in ignorance ; with nourishing superstition; with blowing the flames 
of persecution ; with daily murdering, in the most horrid manner, 
the martyrs to the true faith. The Sovereign Pontiff himself, 
the corner-stone of the whole body, you constantly called anti- 
christ, the Scarlet Whore, the Beast, and the Man of Sin. 
And you prayed most vehemently for his overthrow, insisting 
that the system, of which he was the foundation, manifestly tended 
to the eternal damnation of the souls of the far greater part of the 
people of Europe. 

Well! Napoleon arose. He hurled down the pope; he over- 
threw the anti-Christ, the Scarlet Whore, the Beast, the Man 
of Sin, and with him all the long list of persecutors of the saints. 
Napoleon and his associates did, in three years, what your prayers 
and preachings had not been able to effect in three centuries. 
The pope was stripped of all temporal power ; the cardinals and 
bishops were reduced to mere ciphers ; the monks were driven 
from their dens of laziness and debauchery ; the tricks and frauds 
were exposed; the adored images were turned into firewood; 
the holy relics were laughed at ; the light of truth was suffer- 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 2@3 

ed freely to beam upon the minds of the people ; religious perse- 
cution was put an end to ; and all men were not only permitted, 
but also encouraged, openly to profess, pursue, and enjoy, what- 
ever species of religious faith and worship they chose. Every 
man became eligible to offices, trusts, and honours ; and, through- 
out the domains of Italy and France, where a Presbyterian would 
have been tied to a stake and roasted rather than be suffered to 
fill an office of trust, or to preach to a congregation, religious 
liberty was, under Napoleon, made as perfect as in Pennsylvania, 
and more perfect than in your state of Massachusetts. 

These are facts which none of you, not even Mr. Parish, will 
dare openly to deny. They are as notorious as they will be, and 
ought to be, memorable. 

Ought you not, therefore, to have rejoiced at this wonderful 
change in favour of religious liberty ? How could you see fifty 
millions of souls set free without feeling it impossible to suppress 
an expression of your pleasure ? How could you see the fall of 
anti-Christ without putting up thanksgiving to that God to whom 
you had so long been praying, whom you had so long been wor- 
rying with your importunities, for the accomplishment of that ob- 
ject ? Was not this an event calculated to call forth your grati- 
tude to Heaven? Ought it not to have been expected from you ? 
that you should speak very cautiously in disapprobation of Napo- 
leon and the French republicans, who had effected what you had 
so long been praying for, apparently, in vain? Ought you not, if 
you had spoken at all of the sins of his ambition ; if you had blamed 
him as an invader, a conqueror, a destroyer of republican freedom ; 
to have touched him with a tender hand, considering the immense 
benefits which religious liberty had received in consequence of 
his invasions and conquests ? Ought he not to have found in you^ 
above all men living, if not impartial judges, at least, mild and 
moderate censors ? 

If this was what might naturally and justly have been expected 
from you, what must have been the surprise and indignation of 
those who saw you amongst the very fiercest of Napoleon's foes ; 
amongst the foulest of his calumniators ; amongst the first and 
loudest of those who rejoiced at his fall; who saw you holding 
solemn fasts and thanksgivings for his overthrow; who heard yon 
hail with holy rapture the return of " the ancient order of things," 
and the re-establishment of the " venerable institutions''' of Eu- 
rope ; who heard you joining in the hosannas of the monks, styling 
the Cossacks, and their associates, *' bulwarks of religion" 
" deliverers" aud "saviours ;" who heard you, in the words of 
Mr. Parish, shifting, from the pope to Napoleon himself, the im- 
putation of being anti-Christ, and charging your political oppo- 
nents with being the abetters of that " Scarlet Whore," that 
" Man of Sin !" What must have been the surprise and indigna- 



264 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

tion of those who were the witnesses of your conduct upon this 
memorable occasion 1 How you may stand, at this time, in the 
estimation of your flocks, it is impossible for me to know ; but if 
you still preserve your former weight and consequence, I must 
say that you exhibit an instance of success, of which, in an en- 
lightened country, no former set of impostors ever had to boast. 

What was That " ancient order of things," the return of which 
you hailed with such rapture ? What mere those " venerable 
institutions," of which you thanked the Lord for the approaching 
re-establishment? The holy see of Rome was one, and the inqui- 
sition was another. Thousands of subaltern " venerable institu- 
tions," naturally followed in the train of these ; such as the Vir- 
gin Mary's house at Loretto ; the shrine of Saint Anthony ; the 
holy cross ; the exhibition of Saint Catherine's Wheel, of the 
Holy Thorn that penetrated Christ's cheek, of the Breeches 
of Saint Polomo, so efficacious with barren wives, especially 
by a lusty monk. Hundreds and thousands of thousands 
of these " venerable" things, naturally followed the overthrow of 
him who had overthrown them. All the persecutions of the 
Protestants; all the frauds, insolence, and cruelty, of the Romish 
priests must have been in your view. You are not ignorant men. 
On the contrary, you are some of the most cunning even of priests. 
You knew to a moral certainty that the pope, whom you had for- 
merly led your flocks to believe was anti-Christ, would be re- 
stored. You knew that, instead of a milder sway, he would 
naturally be more rigid than ever in the exercise of his power. 
All this you knew. You knew that the toleration of all Protes- 
tant sects, the encouragement of them, the free use of reason on 
religious subjects, and the free circulation of religious opinions, 
which were so complete under Napoleon, would be instantly de- 
stroyed in the far greater part of Europe. And yet you held a 
solemn thanksgiving to God that Napoleon had been overthrown, 
and you had the impious hypocrisy to call his enemies " the bul- 
warks of religion ;" you; aye, you, whose fathers fled to a wilder- 
ness across the sea, rather than live where they were not permit- 
ted openly to denounce as damnable the remnants which the 
church of England had preserved of that very religion of which 
the enemies of Napoleon were the bulwark, and which you now 
thanked God for the prospect of seeing restored. 

The Holy Father, whom you formerly called the " Scarlet 
Whore," dyed in the blood of the saints ; the " Beasl," as you 
used to call him, whose " mouth was full of blasphemies," re- 
mounted his chair even before " the Most Christian King" got 
upon his throne. One of his first acts was to restore the Jesuits, 
that " ancient and venerable institution," which had become so 
odious, on account of its wicked acts, that it had been abolished 
by all the princes of Europe, and even by a former pope himself. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 265 

The next remarkable step was the re-establishment of the Inqui- 
sition in Spain, where it had been abolished by Napoleon on the 
day that he took possession of the government of that country ; 
and, what is worthy of particular notice, though perfectly natural, 
« c Ferdinand the beloved" in his ordinance, dated 23d July last, 
for the re-establishment of that horrid tribunal, makes use oi 
almost your very language, in reproaching Napoleon with its 
abolition, as you will see by the ordinance itself, annexed to this 
letter. 

You yourselves well know what that tribunal was ; but, as some 
of the good people, whom you have deceived, may not know the 
precise nature of that " venerable institution," which Napoleon 
abolished, and which has been restored in consequence of the 
successes of your " bulwarks of religion," I will here insert an 
account of it from the last edition of the Encyclopedias Britannica, 
referring your flocks to Mr. Dobson's greatly improved Philadel- 
phia edition, that they may verify the correctness of the extract, 
which they will find under the words " Inquisition" and " Act of 
Faith" as follows: 

" INQUISITION.— In the church of Rome, a tribunal, in 
several Roman Catholic countries, erected by the popes for the 
examination and punishment of heretics. This court was founded, 
in tiie twelfth century, by Father Dominic, and his followers, who 
were sent by Pope Innocent III., with orders to excite the Catho- 
lie princes and people to extirpate heretics, to search into their 
number and quality, and to transmit a faithful account thereof to 
Rome. Hence they were called inquisitors ; and this gave 
birth to the formidable tribunal of the inquisition, which was 
received in all Italy, and the dominions of Spain, except the 
kingdom of Naples and the Low Countries. This diabolical 
tribunal takes cognizance of Heresy, Judaism, Mahometanism, 
Sodomy, and Polygamy ; and the people stand in so much feac 
of it, that parents deliver up their children, husbands their wives, 
and masters their servants, to its officers, without daring, in the 
least, to murmur. The prisoners are kept for a long time, till 
they themselves turn their own accusers, and declare the cause 
of their imprisonment ; for they are neither told their crime, 
nor confronted with witnesses. As soon as they are imprisoned 
their friends go into mourning, and speak of them as dead, not 
daring to solicit their pardon, lest they should be brought in as 
accomplices. When there is no shadow of proof against (he pre- 
tended criminal, he is discharged, after suffering the most cruel 
tortures, a tedious and dreadful imprisonment, and the loss of the 
greatest part of his effects. The sentence against the prisoners 
is pronounced publicly, and with the greatest solemnity. In Por- 
tugal, they erect a theatre capable of holding 3,000 persons* in 
which they place a rich altar, and raise seats on each side in the 

34 



266 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

form of an amphitheatre. There the prisoners are placed ; and* 
over against them is a high chair, whither they are called, one by 
by one, to hear their duom from one of the inquisitors. These 
unhappy people know what they are to sutler by the clothes they 
wear that day. Those who appear in their own clothes are dis- 
charged, upon payment of a hue ; those who have a sanlo benito, 
or strait yellow coat without sleeves, charged with St. Andrew's 
cross, have their lives, hut forfeit all their effects ; those who have 
the resemblance of flatnes, made of red serge, sewed upon their 
sani'o benito, without any cross, are pardoned, but threatened to 
be burnt if ever they relapse; but those who, besides these 
flames, have on their sanlo benito their own picture, surrounded 
with figures of devils, are condemned to expire in the flames. 
The inquisitors, who are ecclesiastics, do not pronounce the sen- 
tence of death ; but form and read an act, in which they say- 
that the criminal being convicted of such a crime, by his own con- 
fession, is, with much reluctance, delivered to the secular power, 
to be punished according to his demerits; and this writing they 
give to the seven judges, who attend at the right side of the altar, 
who immediately pass sentence." 

« ACT OF FAITH.— In the Romish church, is a solemn? 
day, held by the inquisition for Ihe punishment of heretics, and the 
absolution of the innocent accused. They usually contrive the 
Auto to fall on some great festival, that the execution may pass 
with the more awe and regard ; at least it is always on a Sunday. 
The Auto da Fe, or Act of Faith, may be called the last act of 
the inquisitorial tragedy ; it is a kind of gaol-delivery, appointed as 
oft as a competent number of prisoners in ihe inquisition are con- 
victed of heresy, either by their own voluntary, or extorted confes- 
sion, or on the evidence of certain witnesses. The process is 
thus: In the morning they are brought into a gre:n hall, where 
they have certain habits put on, which ihey are to wear in the 
procession. The procession is led up by Dominican friars ; after 
which come the penitents, some with nan-ben does., and some with- 
out, according to the nature of the crimes; being all in black coats 
without sleeves, and barefooted, with a wax candle in their hands. 
These are followed by the penitents who have narrowly escaped 
being burnt, who, over their black coats, have flames painted, with 
their points turned downwards, Fuego revollo. Next come the 
negative and relapsed, who are to be burnt, having flames on tneir 
babiU pointing upwards. After these come such as profess doc- 
trines contrary to the faith of Rome, who, besides flames pointing 
upwards, have their picture painted on their breasts, with dogs, 
serpents, and devils, ail open mouthed, about it. Each prisoner 
is attended with a familiar of the inquisition ; and those to be burnt 
have also a Jesuit on each hand, who is continually preaching to 
ihem to abjure. After the prisoners^ come a troop of familiars on 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq^ 267 

horseback, and after Ihem the inquisitors, and other officers of the 
court, on mules ; lasr of all, the inquisitor general, on a white horse, 
led by two men with biack hats and green halbands. A scaffold 
is erected in the Teniero de Pacs, big enough for two or three 
thousand peop'e; at one end of which are the prisoners, at the 
other the inquisitors. After a sermon, made up of encomiums of 
the inquisition, and invectives against heretics, a priest ascends a 
desk near the middle of the scaffold, and having taken the abjura- 
tion of the penitents, recites the final sentence of those who are to 
be put to death ; and delivers them to the secular arm, earnestly 
beseeching, at the same time, the secular power not to touch their 
blood, or put their lives in danger. The prisoners being thus in 
the hands of the civil magistrate, are presently loaded with chains, 
and carried first to the secular gaol, and from thence, in an hour 
or two, brought before the civil judge ; who, after asking in what 
religion they intend to die, pronounces sentence on such as declare 
they die in the communion of Rome, that they shall be first strin- 
gier!, and then burnt to ashes; on such as die in any other faith, 
that they be burnt alive. Both are immediately carried to the 
Ribera, the place of execution, where there are as many stakes 
set up as there are prisoners to be burnt, with a quantity of dry 
furze about them. The stakes of the professed, that is, such as 
persist in their heresy, are about four yards high, having a small 
board towards the top for the prisoner to be seated on. The ne- 
gative and relapsed being first strangled and burnt, the professed 
mount their stakes by a ladder; and the Jesuits, after several re- 
peated exhortations to be reconciled to the church, part with them, 
telling them they leave them to the devil, who is standing at iheir 
elbow to receive their souls and carry them with him into the 
flames of hell. On this a great shout is raised, and the cry is, Let 
the dogs' beards be made ; which is done by thrusting flaming 
furzes fastened to long poles against their faces, till their faces are 
burnt to a coal, which is accompanied with the loudest acclama- 
tions of joy. At. last, fire is set to (he furze at the bottom of the 
stake, over which the professed are chained so high, that the top 
of the flame seldom reaches higher than the board they sit on ; so 
that they rather seem roasted than burnt. There cannot be a 
more lamentable spectacle; the sufferers continually cry out, 
while they are able, misericorda per amor de Dios, l Pity for 
the love of God !' yet it is beheld by all sexes and ages with trans- 
ports of joy and satisfaction." 

People of Massachusetts! Sons of Englishmen, who fled to a 
wilderness, who sacrificed their dearest connexions to religious 
liberty! Merciful, humane, gentle, kind, and brave people of 
Massachusetts, though your Cossack priests can view with dry 
eyes and unmoved muscles this horrid spectacle, does it not chili 
the blood in your veins ? Though they, with holy impudence, can 



268 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

put up thanksgivings for the fall of hira by whom this * venerable 
institution" had been overthrown, and of whose fall its revival was 
a natural, if not certain, consequence ; do not your hearts revolt 
at the impiousness, the baseness, the cruelty, of the sentiment? 

People of Massachusetts, (for to your hardened priests will I no 
longer address myself,) what can have been the real cause of this 
conduct on the part of your priests ? In the people of England it 
«vas very natural and reasonable to rejoice at the fall of Napoleon. 
He had immense power ; he was near them ; he had threatened 
to invade their country ; he had made preparations for so doing. 
It was, therefore, natural for them to rejoice at his fall ; but even 
here, with the exception of a few hypocrites, despised by persons 
of sense, of all parties, people did not rejoice at his fall as an ene- 
my of religion. Had your priests not put up thanksgivings for 
the deliverance of religion, their conduct might have been passed 
over j but when they made that the ground of their gratitude to the 
Cossacks and to Heaven, they invited the lash of censure ; they 
called aloud for the detestation of mankind. 

While, indeed, the French nation seemed to have thrown aside 
all religion whatever ; while they were setting aside all the me- 
morials ami marks of the Christian era ; while they were appa- 
rently all atheists, there was some reason for your priests to wish 
their overthrow. Even in that case, however, they would have 
shown more confidence in Christianity, if they had been less bitter 
against the French. Some men thought that their extreme aspe- 
rity against such writers as Paine, seemed not to say that they 
possessed ability to defeat him in the field of argument ; and, indeed, 
seemed to argue that they did not feel a sufficient degree of confi- 
dence in the goodness of their cause itself; for, if they had been 
thoroughly convinced, as they ought to have been, that the Chris- 
tian religion was built upon a rock, and that the gates of hell would 
never prevail against it, Paine would have been an object of their 
•pity rather than of their persecution. Their anger against him 
wa& madness, unless they apprehended danger from his attempts ; 
and if they did apprehend danger from those attempts, they 
showed a want of sufficient confidence in their cause itself, which 
wan! of confidence should have taught them moderation in their 
attacks on the adversary. There was a great outcry about atheism 
in France ; but what was it, after all, but letting the human mind 
loose; to range at pleasure ? When every man was at liberty to 
say what he liked, who need have been in fear for the cause of 
truth? He who was an insincere Christian; he who doubted of 
the. truth cf Christianity ; he who thought it false, but who pro- 
fessed it from interested motives, had reason to rail against the 
innovators ; but he who was a real believer, and whose belief was 
founded on the conclusions of reason, could not possibly have any 
©round" for alarm, seeing that freedom of discussion is, and etef- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 269 

Dally must be, favourable to truth; and, of course, hostile to 
error and falsehood. Those, therefore, who are opposed to free- 
dom of discussion, on any subject, and who make use of clamours, 
slanders, or force, to prevent it, may, in all cases, and acting 
tinder whatever pretence, be safely considered as wishing to 
sustain error or falsehood. 

But these observations do not apply to the case of the emperor 
Napoleon. However just the hatred of your priests against the 
atheists of France, there was no portion of that hatred due to 
him who re-opened the churches, who invited the performance 
of religious worship, who encouraged the people to make provi- 
sion for the maintenance of the parochial clergy, who went very 
regularly to hear mass himself; but who, at the same time, ef- 
fectually prevented all religious persecution ; who countenanced 
and encouraged all religious sects ; who put them all upon a 
footing of civil and political equality ; and who, throughout his 
vast dominions, was speedily introducing such a system, as to re- 
ligion, as must, in a few years, have inevitably rooted out every 
fibre of superstition, and have put an end for ever to that spirit 
of persecution, which had so long been filling Europe with misery 
and crimes. 

Be he, therefore, what he might, in other respects, he had 
been, and he was, a friend and protector of religious freedom.. 
This quality, one would have thought, was that which, above all 
others, ought to have pleaded in his behalf with your priests ; 
yet they rejoiced at his fall ; they hailed his enemies as the 
" bulwarks of religion ;" they put up thanksgivings for the re- 
storation of the " venerable institutions" which he had pulled 
down ; and they even called him tl anti-Christ," the appellation, 
which they had formerly given to the pope. 

Let your priests say what they will of the French republicans, 
and of Napoleon, the world are witnesses to the fact, that, even 
though a counter-revolution has taken place in France, that coun- 
try has derived immense advantages from the revolution ; that 
she is now freed from numerous oppressions before endured ; that 
her agriculture has made astonishing progress j that she has got 
rid of her feudal tyrannies, her monks, her tythes ,* that her 
farmers are now able to undersell ours in our own markets ; that 
her manufactures are greatly increased ; and that, as yet, her 
king has not ventured to overthrow Napoleon's laws, securing to 
all men perfect religious liberty, and an equality as to all matters 
connected with religious worship and the public capacities of the 
professors of different religions. Nothing could be a greater 
compliment to Napoleon, than the stipulation with the king that 
NAPOLEON'S CODE, civil and religious, .should remain 
untouched. 

What groumi, then, could your priests have for their implacable 



270 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

haired of Napoleon ? Why did they put up thanksgivings for his 
overthrow? Why did they call the Cossacks and their associates 
the " bulwarks of religion?" Why did they call him the oppressor 
of Spain, who had abolished the inquisition, and had driven the 
monks from their convents and their luxury ? What could have been 
the cause of their being amongst his calumniators ? Hew came they 
to join in the prayers and thanksgivings of the Jesuits and Domi- 
nicans ? The truth is, they were actuated by self interest ; they 
were alarmed at ihe consequences to which freedom of discussion 
might lead. The sudden overthrow of the old establishments of 
Europe ; the great shock which the French revolution gave to 
long-received opinions ; the burst of light which had couie into 
the human miud j these alarmed them. They began to fear that, 
if religion became out of fashion in Europe, it might become out 
of fashion in Massachusetts, and leave them in a situation like 
that of the buckle-makers, when shoe-strings came in vogue. 
They now began to perceive, that the fall of the pope, and of the 
Romish superstition and persecutions, would be to (hem a vast 
injury. They saw that the French and Napoleon were snatching 
the very bread and meat off their plates. This was the true 
cause of their hostility against him ; this was the true cause of 
their thanksgivings for the victories of the Cossacks and tlieir as- 
sociates, as the " bulwarks of religion ;" that is to say, the bul- 
warks of their bread and meat ; the bulwark of their living well 
without labour on the earnings of you, who pay them, and who 
do I -hour. The same motive would, of course, have induced 
them to abuse the puilers-down of Mnhomet. Nor must (hey be 
surprised if the world should suspect that, in a similar cause, 
they would have made, if (hey could, a solemn league and cove- 
nant with the devil himseit, and have called him the "Bulwark of 
Religion. 19 

If this conclusion against the Cossack priests of Massachusetts 
■were not obviously dedueible from their above-described conduct, 
unsupported by any other fact ; if any other proof were wanted, 
you have that proof in their electioneering tricks of last year, 
when, amongst their objections to the electing of a republican, or, 
as they termed if, democratic legislature', they complained of a 
former democratic legislature in these memorable words : " They 
impaired the constitutional provision for the support of a public 
worship, by releasing the disaffected from contributing to the sup- 
port of permanent teachers of piety, religion, and morality."* 



* Note. All religions were always tolerated in Massachusetts; but tliere was a 
law, before the republicans got the tipper hand, (o oblige e'tWy person to contribute 
to the maintenance of public protectant worship, to his own teachers, if he had 
any j if he had none of his own, to the priest of t/ie parish wherein he resided. 
The republicans appear to have left every man free to pay to any sect, or to no 
sect at all, as the just and wise William Penn left the matter in Pennsylvania^ 
This was the crime of the republicans, in the eyes of the priests of Massachusetts,- 
Whether the federalists have since saddled the people with a tax on account of re- 
Jii'ioij, I know not. 



k 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 27 1 

That is. to say, they complained of the " democrats" for having 
endeavoured to make Massachusetts, in point of religious liberty, 
what William Penn made Pennsylvania, and what Napoleon 
had made, as nearly as he possibly could, France and Italy, and 
all the countries which he had conquered. Here we see the 
REAL ground of the hostility of your priests to the French re- 
publicans, to Napoleon, and to the republican party in America. 
They had long enjoyed the benefices of a sort of established and 
dominant church; they had long been receiving compulsory pay- 
ments for their support ; they had long felt the agreeable effects 
of this " venerable institution." The example of France, and 
the practical effect thereof in America, had shaken their hold of 
valuable possession ; and hence, and hence alone, their abuse of 
the French and Napoleon ; their dread of the continuance of his 
power ; their exultation at his overthrow ; and their thanksgivings 
for the restoration of those "venerable institutions" in Europe; 
those ecclesiastical powers and profits, which kept their own in 
countenance,' and of which the French and Napoleon had been 
the determined enemies. 

No more need be said. You, the people of Massachusetts, 
who possess so much good sense, who have so often exercised 
that good sense as to other persons and things, cannot long re- 
main the dupes of these hypocrites, who, while they have the 
desire of your welfare in the next world constantly on their lips, 
are manifestly intent upon securing to themselves, in this world, 
ease and plenty, at the public expense. 

Wm. Cobbett. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

The following is the decree of the king of Spain, re-establish- 
ing the inquisition, published in a supplement to the Madrid Ga- 
zette, 23d July, 1814: 

" The King our Lord has been pleased to enact the following 
decree. The glorious title of Catholic, by which the kings of 
Spain are distinguished among the other Christian princes, because 
they do not tolerate in their kingdom any one who professes 
another religion than the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman, has 
powerfully excited my heart to employ a'l the means which God 
has placed in my hands, in order to make myself worthy of it. 
The past troubles and war which afliicted all the provinces of the 
kingdom, during the spare of six years ; the residence therein, 
during that time, of foreign troops of different sects, aim si .oil in- 
fected with abhorrence and hatred to the Catholic religion ; and 
the disorder that these evils always bring with them, together 
with the little care which was taken, for some time, in providing 
for what concerned the things of religion, gave to the wicked un- 



27" 2 Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 

limited license (olive after their free will, and to introduce in this 
kingdom, and fix in many persons, pernicious opinions, by the 
same means with which they had been propagated in other coun- 
tries : Desiring, therefore, to provide a remedy against so great 
xm evil, and preserve in my dominions the holy religion of Jesus 
Christ, which my people love, and in which they have lived and 
do live happily, both by the duty which the fundamental laws of 
the kingdom impose on the prince which shall reign over it, and 
I have sworn to observe and fulfil, as likewise being the most 
proper means to preserve my subjects from intestine dissentions, 
and maintain them in peace, and tranquillity, I have thought it 
would be very convenient, in the present circumstances, that the 
tribunal of the Holy Office should return to the exercise of its 
jurisdiction : Upon which subject wise and virtuous prelates, and 
many corporations and serious persons, both ecclesiastical and 
secular, have represented to me, that it was owing to this tribunal 
that Spain was not contaminated, in the six eenth century, with 
the errors that caused so much ntfliction in other kingdoms, the 
nation flourishing at that time in all kinds of literature, in great 
men, in holiness and virtue : And that one of the principal 
means employed by the oppressor of Europe, in order to sow 
corruption and discord, from which he derive i so many advan- 
tages, was to destroy it, under pretence thai Ike light of the age 
could not bear Us continuance any i longer ; and which, afterwards, 
the self-styled general cortes, with the same pretence, and that 
of the constitution, which they had tumultuously framed, annulled, 
to the great sorrow of the nation. Wherefore, ihey have ardently 
requested me to re-establish that tribunal ; and, according to their 
requests, and the wishes of the people, who, from love to the reli- 
gion of their fathers, hav e restored, of their own accord, some 
of the subaltern tribunals to their functions, I have resolved, that 
the Council of the Inquisition, and the other tribunals of the 
Holy Office, should be restored and continued in the exercise of 
their jurisdiction, both ecclesiastical, which, at the request of my 
august predecessors, the pontiffs gave to it, and the royal, which 
(he king9 granted to it, observing, in the exercise of both, the 
ordinances by which they were governed* in 1308, and the laws 
and provisions, which, to avoid certain abuses, and moderate 
some privileges, it was mete to take at different times. As, 
besides these provisions, it may, perhaps, be suitable to adopt 
other; and my intention being to improve this establishment, that 
(he greatest utility may arise to my subjects from it, i wish that, 
as soon as the Council of the Inquisition shall meet, two of its 
members, with two others of my Royal Council, both of which 
I shall nominate, should examine the form and mode of proceed- 
ing in the causes appertaining to the Holy Office, and the me 'hod 
established for the censure and prohibition ot books ; and if there 



Letters of William, Cobbett, Esq. 273 

should be found any thing in it contrary to the good of my sub- 
jects, and the upright administration 'of justice, or that ought to 
be altered, it shall be proposed to me, that I may determine what 
shall be proper. This is communicated for your information, and 
of whom it may concern. 

" Palace, 21 st July, 1814. 

"THE KING. 

" To Don Pedro de MacandsJ 9 



IS 

1 



To the Knights, Grand Crosses, Commanders and Companioi 
of the Orders of the BULWARK and the HEXRIADE 
lately assembled in full Chapter, at HARTFORD, in K'eio 
England. 

Gentlemen, 

As your occupation appears to have been suddenly put 
an end to by the peace, which our government has had the wis- 
dom to make with yours, it may amuse and please you to be in- 
formed how the glorious work of deliverance proceeds in Europe. 
I was highly delighted to perceive, that you were very careful to 
avail yourselves of the aid of the Cossack Priesthood, during 
your late deliberations. The long prayers, which it was resolved 
those gentry should put up, two or three times a day, was not the 
least interesting part of your measures. It must glad your hearts 
to hear, that the pope, the Jesuits, all the monks (except in disor- 
ganized France) have been not only delivered, but fully re-estab- 
lished by the efforts of the BULWARK ; and that, in Spain, 
the HOLY INQUISITION has been so completely delivered 
•• from the " fell grasp ," as Mr. Randolph calls it, of Napoleon, 
that it is now under the paternal sway of " Ferdinand the belov- 
ed," in full vigour of operation for the support of " social order, 
and of ancient and " venerable establishments." In this opera- 
tion it has laid hold of — who, think you ? Why of those men who, 
for several years, were fighting and writing for " Ferdinand the 
beloved ;" that is to say,' for the BULWARK, against the' de- 
stroyer of venerable institutions. Some of these " patriots," as 
they were called, having taken refuge in our fortress of Gibraltar, 
have been given up by our governor to the beloved Ferdinand, 
whose government has sent one of them to work in the galleys for 
ten years. Another of them has escaped to England, where his 
cause has been espoused by Mr. Whitbkead, who, (hough not a. 
BULWARK man, seems, to have been applied to by (bis BUL- 
WARK Spaniard in preference to the government here, though 
pne would have thought that he would fl v to his old friends to be 

35 



2f4 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

received with open arms. Mr. Whitehead has made several 
very eloquent speeches upon the subject; but, to say the truth, 
they have produced but little effect upon me, and this for two 
reasons : First, these bulwark men fought and wrote for Ferdi- 
nand ; they called every one a traitor and a miscreant, who did not 
wish for the restoration of the ancient family, the venerable insti- 
tutions. In the course of their proceedings, they levelled their 
swords and their pens against the lives of all those, who wished 
not to be delivered ; they drew forth the sweat and blood of their 
country against him who had put down the monks and the inquisi- 
tion ; they persecuted every man who acted as if he dreaded the 
deliverance of Spain. In their turn they are persecuted ; they 
are sent to jails and galleys; and you will please to observe, that 
ihey suffer this from those for whom they had fought, in whose 
behalf they had persecuted others, and are delivered up, too, by 
an English governor. I think, may it please your knighthoods, 
that this is as suitable, as fit, as exemplary, as any human occurrence 
can well be. My other repson for taking little interest in the fate 
of these men, is, that I feel more for persons in our English, 
Scotch, and Irish jails. The patriot who is sent to the galleys, was 
charged with the crime of LIBEL. He, it is acknowledged, 
wrote a letter to the beloved Ferdinand, advising him to adopt a 
new government in Spain ; that is to say, to consent to a revolu- 
tion, that horrid thing, which is so contrary to those ancient and 
venerable institutions, to restore which so much blood and money 
lias been expended ; and for the restoration of which you have so 
long and so fervently prayed through the nose, with your eyes 
turned up towards the ceiling. Now, while there are so many 
men in our jails for writing libels ; while I recollect that so many 
gentlemen were sent from 'Scotland to Botany Bay, on the charge 
of attempting a revolution in our government ; and while I hear 
no word from Mr. Whitbbead in their behalf, that gentleman 
must excuse me, if I am very little moved by his eloquence, great 
as it is, in behalf of these Spaniards. There is a Mr. Lovell 
who has been in our jail of Newgate about four years and a half. 
His offences were copying a short paragraph from a country pa- 
per relative to the operation of the Property Tax, and publish- 
ing another paragraph, or letter, relative to the conduct of the 
transport board towards French prisoners of war. He might be 
in error in both instances ; but his affidavits showed, that he was 
the author of neither publication ; that he copied one, inadver- 
tently, from a country newspaper, and that he did not examine 
the other with sufficient care. He was sentenced to eighteen 
months imprisonment for each, and was fined besides ; and he is 
now in jail, where he has been for a year and a half, wanting ability 
to pay his fines. Mr. Houston is suffering two years imprison- 
ment and fiue for a book on religion. Away, then, with the com- 



Letter's of William Cobbelt, Esq. 275 

plaints of Don Carrea and Don Puigblanc, and all the dons in the 
universe, till Mr. Lovell and Mr. Houston, and others, find some- 
body to feel and to speak for them. It will vex you very much 
to know that the French revolution has produced remarkably be- 
neficial consequences to the country. It is now acknowledged, 
and even proclaimed, by our bulwark newspapers, that France 
has greatly improved in agriculture, during what is called her 
state of disorganisation, though we were told by these same 
newspapers, and by our insipid hireling Mr. Walsh, that Na- 
poleon had left none but old men, women and children, to cul- 
tivate the land. These poor, feeble creatures have got the land 
into such a fine state, that we are compelled to resort to a law to 
protect our farmers against their corn, in which article they under- 
sell us in our own markets. The truth is that, in addition to this 
great improvement in the state of France, the bulwark war has 
left us a load of taxes, which the land cannot pay without high 
prices. The petitions, which have been presented in favour of 
this law, tell us, or, rather, tell the parliament, that our farmers 
cannot sell so cheap as those who pay no tythes, poor-rates, and, 
comparatively, very little in taxes of any sort. What is this but 
attacking tythes, one of the most ancient and venerable institu- 
tions in the whole world ! and these are bulwark men, too, who pe- 
tition in these terms ! In France they have not been able to restore 
tythes ; or, in your language, to deliver the country from the want of 
tythes. They have not been able to restore the gabelles, the, 
corvees, the feudal courts, laws and rights, nor have they yet seen 
a monk in France since the days of Brissot. They have put up 
the Bourbons ; but they have not put down the code Napoleon. 
At the same time I am reminded of an occurrence that will 
give you both pleasure and pain : I mean the attempt to assassi- 
nate Napoleon by the hand of some hired villain. It will give you 
pleasure that a villain has been found to attempt the deed, and 
pain to know that it has not succeeded. Your manifesto has exci- 
ted a great deal of anger in our bulwark newspapers, one of which 
observes, that it was " hoped and expected, that the Hartford de- 
legates would have declared a separation of the union at once." 
On the other hand, you are held in the utmost contempt. You 
had courage to menace, but not enough to strike. If any oT you 
were, however, to do here what you have actually done in Ameri- 
ca ; that is, to endeavour to overawe the king and parliament, you 
would be hanged, have your bowels ripped out and flung in 
your faces ; have your bodies cut in quarters, and the quarters 

placed at the king's disposal. How foolish that would make 

henriade men look i 

Yours to command, 

William Cobbf.tt. 

Eotley, 22d February, 181 5. 



it 6 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq, 



TO THE EAHL OF LIVERPOOL— ON THE AMERICAN WAR 

My Lard, 

From the report of your speech on the eighth instant, it ap* 
pears very clearly that your lordship is, by the reporter, made to 
entertain an opinion that the divisions amongst the American 
people are already such that we may rationally hope, by a con- 
tinuation of the war, to produce a compliance with any conditions, 
or an overthrow of the union, in which union alone consists the 
strength and prospect of future greatness in that rising and fast- 
growing republic. The words, as given in the report of your 
speech, were these : " He (the eail of Liverpool) had seen much 
stronger justifications of the conduct of our forces at Washington, 
which had been published in America, than any that had bee?) 
published even in this country. Not only were they not more 
hostile to us, but the reverse was the case. In places, even 
where the British arms had been successful, the people had shown 
themselves in our favour, and had seemed well disposed to put 
themselves under our protection." Your lordship is not singular 
in your opinion, if it be your opinion. Il is the general opinion ia 
this country. How that opinion had been created and kept alive, 
I will not now inquire. The means made use of for this purpose, 
the " most thinking people" know nothing of. They have opi- 
nions furnished them by others, as regularly as soldiers or sailors 
are served with rations. The lower class are, from their poverty, 
wholly without the pale of information, true or false, and appear to 
know and care as little about the acts of the government, and the 
htate of public affairs, as the earth, or any other substance, on 
which they expend their time and their physical force. The middle 
class are so incessantly employed in pursuit of the means of 
keeping themselves from the horrors of pauperism, that they have 
no time for discussion or inquiry. Many persons, in this class of 
life, have asked me whether the Americans could speak English. 
Few men in the higher ranks of life know any thing worth speak- 
ing of, with regard to the American republic, a nation nearly equat 
in population to Great Britain, and inhabited, as we now feel, by 
men full as enterprising and as brave as our'own soldiers and sailors. 
Even the writers who have fanned the flame of this bloody war, 
know nothing at all about the real state of America ; for though 
they have no desire to promulgate truth ; though it is their trade 
to deceive and cheat the people ; they show by their statements 
that they are ignorant of facts, which, if they knew them, would 
make them able to deceive with less exposure to detection. This 
being the case, it is no wonder that the whole nation is in a state of 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 



2*7 



eiror, as to this matter of primary importance. On the day when 
the news reached the country, relative to the capture of the city 
of Wasl»ngton, I happened to call, on my way homewards from 
Sussex, at the house of a gentleman, who was as likely to be aa 
well informed as any other gentleman in the country, as to this or 
any other political matter. The following was the dialogue, 
wherein I shall exhibit the gentleman and his good wife under the 
name of Friend : 

Mrs- Friend. Well, Mr. Cobbett, we shall soon get rid of the 
income tax [tor so it is called in the country] now. 

Mr. Cobbett. Shall we, madam ? I am very glad to hear it. 
It will enable me to get a better horse for my gig. [She had just 
been laughing at my scurvy equipage.] But, why now, madam? 
What has happened to excite such a cheering hope ? 
Mrs. Friend. Why, have you not heard the news ? 
Mr. Cobbett. No. 

Mr. Friend. We have taken the caj)ital of America. 
Mrs. Friend. And the cowardly dogs, to the amount of 9,000 
men, ran away before 1,500 of our soldiers. 

Mr. Friend. President, and all, ran away ! Nobody knows 
where they went to, and the people were ready to submit to us all 
over the country. 

Mrs. Friend. Cowardly dogs ! Not stand to fight a moment 
for their capital. They are a pretty nation to go to war with 
England ! 

Mr. Friend. They ran away like a great flock of South-down 
sheep before a pack of hounds. 

Mrs. Friend. The cowardly creatures will never dare show 
their faces again. W r hat can you say for these Americans now ? 

Mr. Cobbett. Why, I say that you appear to know no more 
about them than about the people said to be in the moon. Let 
me look at the paper. [It lay before her on the table.] 

Mrs. Friend. No : we must tell it you. It is too long for you 
to sit and read to yourself. 

Mr. Cobbett. Well, now mind, I tell you that, instead of put- 
ting an end to the war, this event will tend to prolong it; and 
mind, I tell you, that unless we give up what we contend for, the 
war will be of many years' duration, and will be as expensive, and 
more bloody, than the war in Europe has been. 

Mr. Friend. WE give up to such cowards as the Americans ! 
Mr. Cobbett. I do not mean to give up either territory or ho- 
nour. I mean, give up the point in dispute; or, rather, our pre- 
sent apparent object. The Americans, like other people, cannot 
meet disciplined armies until they have time to organize and disci- 
pline themselves. But the Americans are not cowards, madam. 
Their seamen have proved that; and, what 1 fear is, that a con- 
tinuance of the war will make the proof clearer and clearer every' 



2f8 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 

day, by land as well as by sea ; and, I am now more than ever 
afraid of a long continuation of the war ; because, if such people 
as you seriously think that we are able to conquer America, I 
can have no reason to hope that any part of the nation remains 
undeceived. 

Mr. Friend. But, do you not think that the states will divide ? 

Mr. Cobbelt. Certainly not. 

Mr. Friend. No ! 

Mr. Cobbelt. No. And I should be glad to know what are 
your reasons for believing that they will divide. If you will give 
me any reasons for your belief, I will give you mine for a con- 
trary belief. Do you think, madam, that the people of America 
are weary of living for thirty years without an income tax ? 

Mr. Friend. I have no reasons of my own about the matter. 
We see, in all our papers, that the Americans are a very divided 
people. They say that they cannot long hold together. 

Mr. Cobbelt. And do you really believe what these corrupted 
vagabonds put into their columns ? You believed, then, of course, 
that " the American navy would be swept from the face of the 
ocean in a month ;" for so they told you. Yet, how different 
has been the events ! No, no ; the Americans are not cowards^ 
madam. , 

Mrs. Friend. Have you had such heaps of lemons this year 
as you used to have 1 

Such was, as nearly as I can recollect, the dialogue on this 
occasion ; and, as I am sure that the war is continued in the hope, 
on the part of the nation, at least, of deriving success from a 
breaking up of the union in America, which, I am thoroughly 
persuaded, we shall not effect, or see take place, I will endea- 
vour to show that this, my persuasion, rests on good grounds : 
and, if I succeed in this endeavour, I shall not yet abandon the 
hope, to which my heart clings, of seeing peace speedily restored 
between the two countries, upon terms not injurious to the inte- 
rest or character of either. 

In turning back, now, to the reported speech of your lordship, 
J perceive, and I perceive it with regret, that you are, by the) 
reporter, made to found your opinion of the American disaffection 
to their government, and of their attachment to our king, in part 
upon their having treated our officers, prisoners of war, with greal 
liberality and kindness. I noticed this in my last number, 
challenged any one to show the instance in which they had ever 
behaved cruelly to prisoners of war. I cited the memorable case 
of Mr. (now Sir Charles) Asgyll, and I appealed to their uniforir 
conduct, during the present war, including the instances of Corn ! 
modores Bainbridge and Perry. But as the conduct of th< 
former, in this respect, has been most basely slandered in som<| 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 2f 9 

of our public prints, I will be somewhat more particular as to both 
instances, adding that of captain Lawrence. 

Commodore Bainbridge captured the Java, off St. Salvadore, on 
the 29th of December, 1812. His frigate, the Constitution, car- 
ried 44 guns, and ours 49 guns, according to the American ac- 
counts. Ours, he says, had upwards of 400 men on board. The 
republicans killed 60 and wounded lTO of our officers and men, 
and had themselves 9 killed and 25 wounded. After the battle, 
at their pressing request, Commodore Bainbridge paroled them all. 
The Java had on board Lieutenant-General Hislop and his staff", 
together with several supernumerary officers and men. The fol- 
lowing letter of General Hislop to Commodore Bainbridge will best 
speak for the latter : 

" Dear Sir, 

" I am justly penetrated with the fullest sense of your 
very handsome and kind treatment, ever since the fate of war 
placed me in your power, and I beg once more to renew to you 
Hiy sincerest acknowledgments for the same. Your acquiescence 
with my request in granting me my parole, with the officers of 
my staff, added to the obligation I had previously experienced, 
claims from me this additional tribute of my thanks. May I now 
finally flatter myself, that, in the further extension of your generous 
and humane feelings in the alleviation of the misfortunes of war, 
you will have the goodness to fulfil the only wish and request 
I am now most anxious to see completed, by enlarging, on their 
parole, (on the same conditions you have acceded to with respect 
to myself,) all the officers of the Java stili on board your ship ; 
a favour I never shall cease duly to appreciate by your acquies- 
cence thereto. 

"I have the honour to subscribe myself, dear sir, your much 
obliged and very obedient servant." 

The request was instantly complied with. Men and all were 
released upon parole. 

In the case of Commodore Perry, the battle was fought on 
Lake Erie, on the 10th of September, 1813. With vessels car- 
rying, altogether, 54 guns, he not only defeated, but captured, 
the whole of our fleet, six vessels, carrying 65 guns, as he stated 
in his official report ; which report, by the by, fully justifies our 
admiralty as to Lake Erie. I take the following paragraph from 
his report to his government upon this occasion : 

" I also beg your instructions respecting the wounded. I am 
satisfied, sir, that whatever steps I might take, governed by hu- 
manity, nioidd meet your approbation. Under this impression, 
I have taken upon myself to promise Captain Barclay, who is very 
dangerously wounded, that he shall be landed as near Lake On* 
tario as possible ; and I had no doubt you would allow me to pa- 
roje- him. He is under the impression that nothing but leaving 



280. Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

this part of the country will save his life. There are also a 
number of Canadians among the prisoners, many who have fa- 
milies." 

Captain Lawrence, in the brig Hornet, attacked and sunk, in, 
fifteen minutes, our brig, the Peacock, killing between thirty 
and forty of our men, while the Hornet had only one man killed, 
and two wounded. Thus says the American report. Ours I 
have not at hand. Then comes the following letter : 

" New-York, 27th March, 1813. 

Sir, 

We, the surviving officers of his Britannic Majesty's late 
brig Peacock, beg leave to return you our grateful acknowledg- 
ments for the kind attention and hospitality we experienced 
during the time we remained on board the United States sloop 
Hornet. So much was done to alleviate the distressing and un- 
comfortable situation in which we were placed, when received on 
board the sloop you command, that we cannot better express our 
feelings than by saying, " We ceased to consider ourselves prison- 
ers;" and every thing that friendship could dictate was adopted 
by you, and the officers of the Hornet, to remedy the inconve- 
nience we would otherwise have experienced from the unavoidable 
loss of the whole of our property and clothes, by the sudden sink- 
ing of the Peacock. Permit us then, sir, impressed, as we are, 
with a gratefiil sense of your kindness, for ourselves and the other 
officers and ship's company, to return you and the officers of the 
Hornet our sincere thanks, which we shall feel obliged if you will 
communicate to them in our name ; and believe us to remain, 
with a /high sense of the kind offices you have rendered us, your 
humble servants, 

" F. A. Wright, First Lieutenant. 

" C. Lambert, Second Lieutenant. 

" Edward Lott, Master. 

" J. Whittaker, Surgeon. 

" F. Donnithrone Unwin, Purser. 

" James Lawrence, Esq. commander U. S. sloop Hornet." 

The American papers added, upon this occasion, the follow- 
ing : 

" It is a fact worthy of note, and in the highest degree honour- 
able to our brave tars, that, on the day succeeding the destruc- 
tion of his Britannic majesty's brig Peacock, the crew of the 
Hornet made a subscription, and supplied the prisoners (who had 
lost almost every thing) with two shirts, a blue jacket and trow- 
sers each." 

Now, my lord, without going into more particulars, let me ask 
you, whether you think that this conduct towards our officers was 
the effect of disaffection towards their own government, of disap- 
probation of its conduct, of a hatred of the war, and of " a dispa- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 281 

siiion to put themselves wider our protection??" And, if you 
answer in the negative, as you must, I suppose, why do you 
think that the humane treatment of our officers elsewhere indi- 
cates such a disposition ? Does your lordship see no possible 
danger in drawing such an inference ? Do you think that it is 
wholly out of all belief, that your being reported to have drawn 
such an inference may render the treatment of our officers, pri- 
soners of war, less humane and kind in future ? Seeing that a 
disposition in an American citizen to put himself under the pro- 
tection of our king is a disposition to commit treason, in the eye 
of the laws of his country, would it be so very surprising if, in 
future, the Americans should be very cautious how they exposed 
themselves to the merit of such a compliment? I must, however, 
do your lordship the justice to observe here, that what the pro- 
prietors of our newspapers have published as your speech, might 
never have been uttered by you. I would fain hope that they 
have, in this case, put forth, under your name, the suggestions 
of their own minds. I, therefore, comment on the thing as theirs, 
and not as yours. 

In order to show that there is no foundation for the hope, en- 
tertained by people here, and so often expressed by our news- 
papers, of dividing the republic of America, I must go into a 
history of the parties which exist in that republic ; give an ac» 
count of their origin and progress, and describe their present 
temper and relative force. The population is divided into two 
parties ; the republicans and the federalists. The latter 
also claim the title of republicans, but it is, and I think we shall 
find, with justice, denied to them by the former. 

These two parties have, in fact, existed ever since the close of 
the revolutionary war, though their animosities have never ap- 
peared to be so great, nor to threaten such serious consequences 
as since the commencement of the French revolution, especially 
since the first presidency of Mr. Jefferson, whose exaltation to* 
the chair was the proof of decided triumph on the part of the re- 
publicans, and plunged their opponents into a state of despera- 
tion. 

Thefcderalists took their name from the general government, 
which, be\n<r federal ive, was called/ederaZ. Some of the people, 
as well as some of the members of the convention who formed 
the constitution, were for the new general government, and some 
were against it. Those who were against it, and who were for a. 
government of a still more democratical form, were called at first, 
anti-federalists ; but, of late, they have been called republicans, 
in opposition to the federalists, who were for a government of an 
aristocratical, if not of nearly a kingly form, and who proposed, 
in the convention, a president and senate for life. There was 
at this time a great struggle between the parties— 4he opposition 

36 



•282 Letters of Willium Cobbett, Esq. 

of the republicans spoiled the projects of the federalists ; aud 
the government was at last, of a form and nature, which was 
wholly pleasing to neither, but did not, on the other hand, greatly 
displease either. 

The federalists, however^ took the whole credit to themselves 
of having formed the government ; and as General Washington, 
who had been president of the convention, and was decidedly for 
a federative general government, was elected the president under 
the new constitution, the federalists at once assumed that they 
were the only persons who had any right or title to have any 
thing to do with that government, treating their opponents as per- 
sons necessarily hostile to, and, of course, unfit to be entrusted 
with, the carrying on of the federal government. 

When the first congress met, under the new constitution, it was 
clear that the federalists endeavoured to do by degrees, that which 
they had not been able to accomplish all at once in the convention. 
They proposed to address the president by the title of his serene 
highness, and to introduce other forms and trappings of royalty, 
or, at least, of a high aristocracy. Their intention was defeated, to 
their inexpressible mortification. The people were shocked at 
these attempts ; and from that moment the opposite party seem 
to have gained ground in the confidence of the people, who ab- 
horred the idea of any thing that bore a resemblance to kingly 
government, or that seemed to make the slightest approach to- 
wards hereditary or family rule. 

When the French revolution broke out : when that great nation 
declared itself a republic, and went even further than America 
had gone in the road of democracy, the two parties took their 
diflferent sides. Heats and animosities were revived. While 
General Washington remained president, however, he acted with 
so much caution and moderation, that it was difficult for any one 
openly to censure him. He was blamed by both parties. One 
wished him to take part with France, the other with England. 
He did neither, and, upon the whole, he left no party any good 
reason to complain of him. But when Mr. Adams, who was a 
native of Massachusetts, where the federal party was in great 
force, became president, he certainly did, yielding to the coun- 
sels of weak and violent men, push things very nearly to an offen- 
sive and defensive alliance with us. The violent and unjust pro- 
ceedings of the French government furnished a pretext for rais- 
ing aw army, which was, for some time, kept on foot in time of 
peace, in the very teeth of the constitution. A sedition bill was 
passed, with power of sending aliens out of the country; and 
many other things were done, in the heat of the moment, which 
Mr. Adams, had he not been surrounded by the Massachusetts 
federalists, never would have thought of, being a republican at 
heart, and a real friend to the liberties of his country. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 283 

Mr. Adams's presidency ended in March, 1801. He was 
proposed to be re-elected ; but he lost his election, and the choice 
fell upon Mr. Jefferson, who had always been deemed the head 
of the republican party. The truth is, that the people were re- 
publicans. Every thing had been tried ; threats, alarms, religion, 
all sorts of schemes ; but they took alarm at nothing but the at- 
tempts upon their liberty, and they hurled down the party who 
had made those attempts. Since that time, the government has 
been in the hands of the republicans. Mr. Jefferson was presi- 
dent for eight years, Mr. Madison for four years, and is now going 
on for the second four years. 

Your lordship knows, as well as any man upon earth, how fond 
people are of place and power ; and that no part of any opposi- 
tion is so bitter and troublesome as that part which consists of 
men whose ambitious hopes may have been blasted by their being 
turned out of place. It now happened, very naturally, but rather 
oddly, that the federalists became the opposition to the federal 
government ; but they still retained, and do retain their title ; 
though, really, they ought to be called the aristocrats, or royal-* 
ists. 

This opposition is now, however, chiefly confined to the stale 
of Massachusetts, the state government of which has even talk- 
ed about separating from the union. Your lordship has heard 
of a Mr. Henry, who was, it seems, in close consultation and cor- 
respondence with the persons holding the reins of government in 
Massachusetts upon the subject of separation, and who pretend- 
ed that he was employed by sir James Craig, governor of Canada, 
for that purpose. Your lordship, I believe, disclaimed him and 
his intrigues, and, therefore, I must believe, of course, that he 
was not employed by our governor But the people of America 
have been led to believe that there must have been something in 
his story. 

This state of Massachusetts contains a great number of men of 
talents ; many rich men, become so chiefly by the purchasing, at 
a very low rate, of the certificates of soldiers who served in the 
late war,* and by procuring acts of cong-ress to cause the sums 
to be paid in full, which, indeed, was thought, and openly said, 
to be their main object in pressing for a federal government with 
large powers. These men, now disappointed in all their ambi- 
tious hopes ; seeing no chance of becoming petty noblemen ; 
seeing the officers and power of the country pass into other 
hands, without the smallest probability of their return to them- 
selves, unless they be content to abandon all their high notions of 
family distinction ; these men have become desperate ; and, if I 
am to judge from their proceedings, would plunge their country 
into a civil war, rather than yield quiet obedience to that very 
government which they had been so long in the practice of cen- 

* The revolutionary war. 



2^4 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

suring others for not sufficiently admiring. But, my lord, though 
there is & majority of voices in Massachusetts on our side ; tor 
on our side they really are, there is a thumping minority 
on the other side ; and what is of great importance in the esti- 
mate, that minority consists of the nerves, the bones, and sinews 
of the population of the state ; so that the sum total of our ground 
of reliance, as to a separation of the states, is the good will of the 
most numerous, but most feeble and inefficient part of the people 
of the state of Massachusetts ; and even these, I am fully per- 
suaded, are by this day, awed into silence by the determined at- 
titude of the rest of the country. 

The same charges, which our vile newspapers have been pre- 
ferring against Mr. Madison, have been preferred against him by 
their serene highnesses of Massachusetts. They have accused 
him of a devotion to France; they have, in our newspaper style, 
called him the " tool of Napoleon ; they, too, have dared to 
assert that he made war upon us, without the slightest provocation, 
for the purpose of aiding Napoleon in destroying England, " the 
bulwark of their religion" They have held public feasts and 
rejoicings at the entrance of the Cossacks into France, and at the 
restoration of the ancient order of things. You will bear in mind 
that these people are stanch Presbyterians ; and it would amuse 
your lordship to read the orations, preachings, and prayers, of 
these people ; to witness their gratitude to Heaven for restoring 
the pope, whom they used to call the Scarlet Whore, the Whore 
of Babylon; for the re-establishment of the Jesuits; and for the 
re-opening of the dungeons, the resharpening of the hooks, and 
the rekindling of the flames of the inquisition. Their opponents, 
the republicans, say, we never were the friends of Napoleon, as 
a despot, nor even as an emperor; we never approved of any of 
bis acts of oppression, either in France or out of France; we 
always complained of his acts of injustice towards ourselves ; but 
he was less hurtful to our country than other powers ; and, as to 
mankind in general, though we regretted to see him with so much 
power, we feared that that power would be succeeded by some- 
thing worse; and we cannot now rejoice that the pope is restored, 
that the Jesuits are re-established, the inquisition re-invigorated ; 
that monkery is again overspreading the face of Europe ; and that 
the very hope of freedom there seems to be about to be extin- 
guished forever. And this, your lordship may be assured, is 
the language of nineteeen-twentieths of the people of America. 

There are, it is to be observed, federalists in all the states, 
which you will easily believe, when you consider how natural it 
is for men, or at least, how prone men are, to wish to erect them- 
selves into superior classes. As soon as a man has got a great 
deal of money, he aims at something beyond that. He thirsts for 
distinctions and titles. His next object is to hand them down to 



Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 28.5 

Iiis family. It will require great watchfulness and great resolu- 
tion in the Americans to defeat this propensity. You have not 
leisure for it, or it would amuse you to trace the workings of this 
jvoiddbe nobility in America. They are very shamefaced about 
it ; bu( they let it peep out through the crannies of their hypocrisy* 
Being defeated, and totally put to the rout, in the open field, by 
the general good sense of the people, they have resorted to the 
most contemptible devices for effecting, by degrees, that which 
they were unable to carry at a push. They have established 
what they call " Benevolent Societies," to which they have pre- 
fixed, by way of epithet, or characteristic, the name of Washing- 
ion. The professed object of these societies, who have their pe- 
riodical orations, preachings, prayings, and toastings, was to afford 
relief to any persons who might be in distress. The heal ob- 
ject appears to have been to enlist idlers and needy persons 
under their political banners. These little coteries of hypocrites 
appear to have assembled, as it were, by a unanimous sentiment, 
or rather, by instinct, to celebrate the fall of Napoleon, and the 
restoration of the pope, the Jesuits, and the inquisition. But un- 
fortunately for this affiliation of hypocrites, they have little, or no 
materials to work upon in America, where a man can earn a week's 
subsistence in less time than he can go to apply for and obtain it 
without work; and, accordingly, the affiliation seems destined to 
share the fate of the serene highness' s proposition of twenty-five 
years ago. 

The fall of Napoleon, so far from weakening, will tend to 
strengthen the general government in the hands of the republi- 
cans. It has deprived its enemies of the grand topic of censure; 
the main ground of attack. The " Cossacks ," as they are now 
sometimes called, of Massachusetts, can no longer charge the 
president with being the " tool of Napoleon ;" they no longer 
stand in need of England as " the bulwark of religion," 
seeing that they have the pope, the Jesuits, the Benedictines, the 
Franciscans, the Carthusians, the Dominicans, and, above all, the 
inquisition, to supply her place in the performance of that godly 
office. They will no longer, they can no longer, reproach the 
president for his attachment to France ; for France has now a 
king, a legitimate sovereign, who regularly hears mass. They 
are now, therefore, put in this dilemma: they must declare open- 
ly for England against their country ; or, by petty cavilling, must 
make their opposition contemptible. The former they dare not 
do ; and they are too full of spite not to do the latter. So that 
their doom, I imagine, is sealed ; and their fail will not be much 
less complete than that of Napoleon himself, with this great differ- 
ence, however, that his name and the fame of his deeds will de- 
scend to the latest posterity, while the projects of ennobling them- 
selves, at the expense of their country's freedom and happiness, 



286 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

•will be forgotten and forgiven before one half of them are eaten 
by worms. 

This is my view of the matter. Your lordship will probably 
think it erroneous; but, if it prove correct, how long and how bit- 
terly shall we have to deplore the existence of this bloody contest. 

I am, &c. 

William Cobbett. 



DESPERATE NAVAL ENGAGEMENTS. 

I observe it stated in the Halifax papers of the 2d instant, that 
the Prince of Neufcbatel, an American armed brig, had arrived 
at Boston, after sustaining a gallant action of twenty minutes with 
five boats full of men belonging to our ship of war the Endymion. 
The account says, that one of our boats sunk during the engage- 
ment, " which had on board, at first, 43 men, of whom two only 
were saved ; and another, which had 36 men, was taken posses- 
sion of, after having 8 killed, and 20 wounded. " The Endymion 
is said to have lost, in all, 100 men killed, wounded, and prisoners \ 
among which, the first lieutenant and a master's mate were killed, 
and three lieutenants and two master's mates wounded. The Prince 
of Neufchatel had only " 31 men at quarters, including officers, and 
37 prisoners on board. Six of her men were killed, 1 5 severely 
wounded, 9 slightly, and 8 remained unhurt." It is true that 
nothing has been published here in an official shape respecting 
this naval disaster ; but this circumstance can no more invalidate 
the truth of the statement than the silence which has been kept 
up as to the fate of the Avon will lead us to doubt that that vessel 
was sunk by her American opponent. The repulse and disaster 
attending the Endymion, is not, however, the only naval triumph 
of the enemy which has been carefully concealed from the public 
eye. The following article appears in the Paris papers, received 
to the 22d instant : 

Extract of a letter from Mr. John B. Dabney, consul for the United States of Ame; 

rica, dated Fayal, October 6. 

" Our countrymen have had a brilliant affair. Despising the 
rights of nations, and violating neutral territory, three English 
vessels, the Plantagenet, the Rota, and the Carnation, attacked 
the brig General Armstrong, American privateer, of 14 guns, 
commanded by Captain Reid, at anchor in these roads. They 
succeeded, finally, in destroying her, but paid dearly for it, for 
they had 120 killed, and 90 of their best marines wounded, in- 
eluding the flower of their officers. Captain Reid, with his 
brave crew, consisting only of 90 men, had only seven slightly 
wounded. 



,i 



Letters of William Cobbeti, Esq. 287 

About ten days ago I received the following letter from an 
English gentleman at Fayal, which he transmitted by a vessel 
bound for Lisbon, giving the full particulars of the above affair. 
It speaks volumes, and must reach conviction to the minds of 
those who are so far deluded to think, thai it is in the power of 
this country to subdue a people who fight with so much undaunt- 
ed resolution as the Americans : 

Fayal, October 15, 1814. 

oir, 

The American schooner privateer General Armstrong, of 
New York, Captain Samuel C. Reid, of 7 guns and 90 men, 
entered here on the 26th ultimo, about noon, 17 days from that 
place, for the purpose of obtaining water. The captain, seeing 
nothing on the horizon, was induced to anchor. Before the 
elapse of many hours, his majesty's brig Carnation came in, and 
anchored near her. About six his majesty's ship Plantagenet, of 
74 guns, and the Rota frigate, came in and anchored also. The 
captain of the privateer and his friends consulted the first autho- 
rities here about her security. They all considered her perfectly 
secure, and that his majesty's officers were too well acquainted 
with the respect due to a neutral port to molest her. But, to the 
great surprise of every one, about nine in the evening, four boats 
were despatched, armed and manned from his majesty's ships, for 
the purpose of cutting her out. It being about full of moon, the 
night perfectly clear and calm, we could see every movement 
made. The boats approached with rapidity towards her, when, 
it appears, the captain of the privateer hailed them, and told 
them to keep off, several times. They, notwithstanding, pushed 
on, and were in the act of boarding, before any defence was 
made for the privateer. A warm contest ensued on both sides. 
The boats were finally dispersed with great loss. 

The American, now calculating on a very superior force being 
sent, cut his cables, and rowed the privateer close in alongside 
of the fori, within half-cable's length, where he moored her, 
head and stern, with four lines. The governor now sent a remon- 
strance to Van Lloyd, of the Plantagenet, against such pro- 
ceedings, and trusted that the privateer would not be further 
molested ; she being in the dominions of Portugal, and under the 
guns of the castle, was entitled to Portuguese protection. Van 
Lloyd's answer was, that he was determined to destroy the vessel, 
at the expense of all Fayal, and should any protection be given 
her by the fort, he would not leave ?. house standing in the vil- 
lage. All the inhabitants were gathered about the walls, expect- 
ing a renewal of the attack. At midnight, 14 launches were 
discovered to be coming in rotation for the purpose. When they 
got within clear, or gun-shot, a tremendous and effectual discharge 
Tras made from the privateer, winch threw the boats into confu* 



281* Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 

sion. They now returned a spirited fire, but the privateer kept 
up so continual a discharge, it was almost impossible for the boat?i 
to make any progress. They finally succeeded, after immense 
loss, to get alongside of her, and attempted to board at every 
quarter, cheered by the officers with a shout of " no quarter !" 
which we could distinctly hear, as well as their shrieks and cries. 
The termination was near about a total massacre. Three of the 
boats were sunk, and but one poor solitary officer escaped death 
in a boat that contained fifty souls ; he was wounded. 

The Americans fought with great firmness, but more like blood- 
thirsty savages than any thing else. They rushed into the boats, 
sword in hand, and put every soul to death as far as came within 
their power. Some of the boats were left without a single man to 
row them j others with three and four. The most that any one 
returned with was about ten. Several boats floated on shore full 
of dead bodies. With great reluctance I state, they were manned 
with picked men, and commanded by the first, second, third, and 
fourth lieutenants of the Plantagenet; first, second, third, and 
fourth ditto of the frigate, and the first officers of the brig ; toge- 
ther with a great number of midshipmen. Our whole force ex- 
ceeded 400 men. But three officers escaped, two of whom are 
wounded. This bloody and unfortunate contest lasted about forty 
minutes. After the boats gave out, nothing more was attempted 
till daylight the next morning, when the Carnation hauled in along- 
side, and engaged her. The privateer still continued to make a 
most gallant defence. These veterans reminded me of Law- 
rence's dying words of the Chesapeake, " don't give up the ship,'* 
The Carnation lost one of her topmasts, and her yards were shot 
away ; she was much cut up in the rigging, and received several 
shot in her hull. This obliged her to haul off to repair, and to 
cease firing. 

The Americans now finding their principal gun, (Long Tom,) 
and several others, dismounted, deemed it folly to think of saving 
her against so superior a force ; they therefore cut away her masts 
to the deck, blew a hole through her bottom, took out their small 
arms, clothing, &c. and went on shore. I discovered only two 
shot-holes in the hull of the privateer, allhough much cut up in 
rigging. Two boats' crews were, soon after, despatched from 
our vessels, which went on board, took out some provisions, and 
set her on fire. 

For* three days after, we were employed in burying the dead 
that washed on shore in the surf. The number of British killed 
exceeds 120, and 90 wounded. The enemy, to the surprise of 
mankind, lost only iivo killed, and seven wounded. We may 
well say—" God deliver us from our enemies, if this is the way 
the Americans fight." 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 289 

After burning the privateer, Van Lloyd made a demand to the 
governor to deliver up the Americans as his prisoners, which the 
governor refused. He threatened to send 500 men on shore, and 
take them by force. The Americans immediately retired, with 
their arms, to an old Gothic convent, knocked away the adjoin- 
ing drawbridge, and determined to defend themselves to the last. 
The Van, however, thought better than to send his men. He 
then demanded two men, which, he said, deserted from his vessel 
when in America, The governor sent for the men, but found 
none of the description given. 

Many houses received much injury on shore from the guns of 
the Carnation. A woman, sitting in the fourth story of her house, 
had her thigh shot off, and a boy had his arm broken. 

The American consul here has made a demand on the Portu- 
guese government for a hundred thousand dollars for the privateer, 
which our consul, Mr. Parkin, thinks, in justice, will be paid, 
and that they will claim on England. Mr. Parkin, Mr. Edward 
Bayley, and other English gentlemen, disapprove of the outrage 
and depredation committed by our vessels on this occasion. The 
vessel that was despatched to England with the wounded, was not 
permitted to take a single letter from any person. Being an eye- 
witness to this transaction, I have given you a correct statement 
as it occurred. 

With respect, I am, &c. 

H. K. F. 
William Cobbett, Esq. 



TO THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL— ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 

My Lord, 

In the American newspapers I have seen an article entitled 
" British Botheration" in which article are noticed, in a most 
ludicrous, but most provoking manner, all the wise observations 
made in England as to the cause of our ships being beaten by 
those of America. At the close of the article, the writer states 
what he regards as the real cause ; but which statement I will, 
for my health's sake, refrain from repeating to your lordship. 
But if this saucy republican gave the title of botheration to our 
former puzzlings upon this head, what will he say now, when the 
question is become ten thousand times more embroiled than 
ever ? 

The speeches attributed to the opposition, upon this subject, 
present matter worthy of public observation. Mr. Horner lays 
the blame of the failure on the lakes Erie and Champlain : he 

31 






i|'90 Letters of William Cobhetl, Esq* 

attributes those memorable victories of the Americans to the 
ministry. He complains that you and your colleagues left out 
naval commanders to contend with a vast superiority of force. 
The American official account, in both cases, makes the superior- 
ity of the force on our side ; and, as to Lake Okamplain, Sir G. 
Prevost, himself, gives us a superiority of seven guns. I am, for 
my part, at a loss to discover the policy of ascribing every dis- 
grace to the ministers, and every success to the commanders. Of 
its flagrant injustice there can be no doubt ; and it appears to 
me that its folly is not much more questionable. Wellington was 
made a duke for his success ; but, according to the present way 
of thinking, or of talking, the secretary of the war department 
should have been made a duke, and Wellington remained what he 
was ; and the lords of the admiralty should have had all the ri- 
bands, stars, and titles that have been bestowed on naval comman- 
ders. If to the commanders belong the praises of victories ; to 
them also belong, upon the face of the matter, the blame of 
defeat. 

Much reliance appears to be placed, by the opposition, on the 
circumstance of Captain Barclay having been honourably acquit- 
ted by a court martial. For, say they, if he was provided with a 
force equal to that of the Americans, he must have been guilty ; 
and, if he was not, the ministers are to blame. They take this 
sentence of the court martial, therefore, as a proof of the guilt of 
ministers. But is it not very evident that this conclusion is false? 
Captain Barclay might be as brave a man a3 ever existed ; he 
might have acted with wisdom equal to his bravery ; he might 
have had a superiority of guns and men; he might have been de- 
feated ; yet he might be perfectly free from any blame ; and might, 
on the contrary, merit honours and rewards; still the admiralty 
might deserve no censure whatever. The Americans might have 
abler seamen ; they might, from their superior bodily strength and 
agility, be able to fire quicker than we ; they might fight with a 
unheard-of degree of resolution and eagerness; they might b 
animated with feelings unknown to the bosom3 of their advers 
lies. What ! is it to become a maxim, that whenever one of on 
commanders is defeated, there must be a crime either in him or i 
the ministry ? Must he be punished, or they condemned ? Must 
he be their accuser, or they be his accusers ? This would soon in- 
troduce a very amicable sort of connexion between the comman- 
ders and the ministry. 

The truth is, my lord, that there is a degree of mortification, 
and of shame, attached to these naval victories of the Americans, 
that drives men, and particularly naval men, who have all the mass 
of the people with them, to all sorts of follies and inconsistencies. 
They do not know what to say or to do, in order to get rid of this 
insupportable mortification. Sometimes Johnny Bull says to Jo- 






i 



Letters of William CobbetL, E*q. 29* 

nafhan, " you have got some English sailors in your ships."-— 
" May be so," says Jonathan, u but you have got all English 
sailors in your ships." — " Aye," replies John, " but you have 
got the best of our sailors," — " May be so," says Jonathan, " but, 
then, how come the best of your sailors to desert from your ser- 
vice, to come into mine ?" — " No, no!" rejoins John, hastily, " I 
don't mean the best men ; I mean that they fight more desperately 
than those we have on board, because the rascals know that if they 
are taken they will be hanged." — " Oh fie ! Johnny/' rejoins 
Jonathan, " do you think that Englishmen will fight better from a 
dread of the gallows than from a love of their king and their 
glorious constitution?" " No," says John, "I said no such a 
thing. You have got heavier shot, and stronger powder, and 
more guns, and more men" — " Indeed, Johnny," says Jonathan, 
" why, I am sure you pay enough for your ships, shot, guns, men, 
and powder. Your navy and ordnance, last year, cost you 25 
millions sterling, which is more than twenty times as much as 
ours is to cost us next year, though we are building fleets and form- 
ing dock-yards, beside defending, lakes and all, three thousand 

miles of sea coast." « Well," says John, ready to burst with 

anger, " what is that to you, what I pay ? I will pay it, if I like 
to pay!" — « Oh dear!" says Jonathan, "don't be angry, old 
friend. I have not the least objection to your paying ; only, / 
hope I shall not hear any more of your grumbling about the pro- 
perty lax." — " You are a saucy scoundrel," says John, foaming 
with rage ; " you deserve a good drubbing, you Yankee dog, and 
you will get it yet—znd, at any rate, if / pay taxes, I'll make you 
pay taxes too. If I am' miserable myself, I'll make you unhappy 
if I can." 

It is to this mortification, my lord, that you Lave to ascribe the 
attacks of the newspapers on the naval administration, which 
really appears to me to have done more in Canada than could 
have been expected at their hands. You see that the opposition 
here are supported by the country, who will blame you, blame 
Sir George Prevost, blame our powder, shot, ships, gun locks ; 
blame any person or thing ; blame and execrate all the world, 
rather than acknowledge that the republicans are, gun to gun, and 
man to man, our masters upon the sea. Far be it from me to cen- 
sure a reluctance to come to such an acknowledgment. The re- 
luctance arises from a love of one of the best professions of one's 
country : namely, its fame in deeds of arms. But, then, it is ma- 
nifest, that this patriotic feeling, if not subjected to reason and 
enlightened views, may be productive of great injustice towards 
•commanders, or ministers, or both; and may expose the nation 
to great and lasting misery. The opposition are feeding this fee!- 
j ing. They ascribe every failure to you and your colleagues ; ami 
they studiously keep out of sight the real cause of those failures 






292 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq, 

They justify the war on our part ; they fan the flame ; they excite 
false hopes of future success ; they say to the people, we have 
failed hitherto from the fault of the ministry ; and, thereby, they 
cause it to be believed, that better may be done for the future, 
without any radical change in our political and naval systems ; and 
in doing so, they do, in my opinion, as great an injury as they can 
possibly do to the country. 

Next to the ministry comes Sir George Prevost. Mr. Horner 
did not know which was to blame, the ministry or the colonial 
governor. The fleet had been beat and captured, and Mr. Hor- 
ner was sure that it must have been owing to something other than 
the fleet itself, or, at least, its commanders. It never could be their 
fault. Men who fought two hours and twenty minutes within a 
few yards of the mouths of the opposing cannon, and whose ves- 
sels had not a mast or any thing standing to which a sail could be 
fastened. Such men could not be in thefault. They fought most 
bravely. They were overpowered. They lost their fleet; but 
ungrateful is the country, and base the man, who insinuates that 
they ought to have done more. They could do no more. If they 
had continued to fight, they must have been all blown to pieces, 
without the power of resistance. No ; it was not the fault of the 
officers of our fleet ; it was the fault of the Yankees, for being so 
strong in body, so agile, so dexterous, and so determined. Mr. 
Horner should have made a motion against them. Suppose he 
were, next time, to make a motion for prosecuting them ? If 
we could get at them in that way, it would soon benumb their 
faculties. 

" Aye," say the people about Portsmouth and Gosport, " it 
is time an inquiry was made ! It is a shame that Sir George Pre- 
vost is not brought home and punished." I can assure your lord- 
ship, that this is their language ; and they will be quite outrageous 
when they find that he is not to be punished ; but, on the con- 
trary, is to remain where he is. There is no one hereabouts who 
does not think that Sir James Yeo's letter to the lords of the ad- 
miralty is a finisher for Sir George. To such a pitch of folly has 
the nation been pushed by their notions of the invincibility of 
the navy, that a captain in that service is looked upon as the 
absolute arbiter of the fate of a lieutenant general of the army, 
and the governor of a province, under whose command he is 
serving. Sensible men were disgusted at the arrogance of Sir 
James Yeo's letter ; but it was well suited to the capacities and 
tastes of those who sing, or listen to Dibdin's nauseous trash about 
the fleet and the sailors. 

Upon the heads of those who demand these inquiries and ex- 
posures, be the consequences. These consequences will be, 
clear proof, that our naval officers had a sufficiency of force upon 
both the occasions alluded to, and that they were to blame, if any 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 293 

body was, for their defeats. Sir George Prevost will never suffer 
himself to be regarded as the cause of these calamities and dis- 
graces ; and I am very sure that the ministry, having the power, 
will not neglect the means of justifying themselves. So that all 
this stir will only tend to make the mortification of the navy 
greater than it now is ; the prejudices of the nation will only re- 
ceive the greater shock ; and the world will only have completer 
proof of those very facts which we are so anxious to disguise or 
disfigure. 

It was observed, during the debate, that though our ships of 
war were quite sufficiently provided with the means of u combat- 
ing an ordinary foe, they ought to have been fitted out in an 
extraordinary way to combat such a foe as the Americans f 
But suppose the admiralty not to have fitted them out in this 
extraordinary way ? Were they to blame for that ? Was there a 
man in the country who did not despise the American navy ? 
Was there a public writer beside myself, who did not doom that 
navy to destruction in a month? Did not all parties exceedingly 
relish the description, given in a very august assembly, of " half 
a dozen of fir frigates, with bits of striped bunting at their mast- 
heads ?" Did not the Guerriere sail up and down the American 
coast, with her name written on her flag, challenging those fir fri- 
gates I Did not the whole nation, with one voice, exclaim at the 
affair of the Little Bell, " only let Rougers come wilhin reach 
of one of our frigates ? n If, then, such was the opinion of the 
whole nation, of all men, of all parties; with what justice is the 
board of admiralty blamed for not thinking otherwise ; for not 
sending out the means of combating an extraordinary sort of 
foe; for not issuing a privilege to our frigates to run away from 
one of those fir-built things with a bit of striped bunting at its 
tnast head ? 

It has always been the misfortune of England that her rulers 
and her people have spoken and have thought contemptuously of 
the Americans. Your lordship and I were boys, and, indeed, 
not born, or at least, I was not, when cur king first was involved 
in a quarrel with the Americans. But almost as long as I can re- 
member any thing, I can remember that this contempt was ex- 
pressed in the songs and sayings of the clod hoppers amongst 
whom 1 was born and bred ; in doing which we conducted down 
to the earth that we delved, the sentiments of the 'squires and 
lords. The result of the former war, while it enlightened no- 
body, added to the vindictiveness of hundreds of thousands ; sq 
that we have entered into this war with all our old stock of con* 
tempt, and a vastly increased stock of rancour. To think that 
the American republic is to be a great power, is insupportable. 
Some men, in order to keep her down, m their language, and at 
the same time, not use harsh expression?, obsefVe, that she is only 



294 Letters of William Gobbett, Esq- 

another part of ourselves. They wish her to be thought, if not 
dependent upon us, still lo be a sort of younger child of our fa- 
mily, coming in after Ireland, Jamaica, Sec. I met a very worthy 
Scots gentleman, a month or two ago, who wished that some man 
of ability would propose a scheme that he had, and without which, 
he said, we never should have peace again, " Well, sir," said I, 
" and pray what is your scheme ?" " Why," said he, "• it is 
very simple. It is to form a UNION with the American 
states." It was raining, and I wanted to get on; so that I had 
not time to ascertain what sort of union he meant. This gentle- 
man, however, was remarkably moderate in his views. The far 
greater part of the nation expect absolute colonial submission; 
and if our fleets and armies should not finally succeed in bringing 
?. property tax from America into his majesty's exchequer, the 
far greater part of the people will be most grievously disappointed. 
So that this contempt of the Yankees has given your lordship and. 
your colleagues a good deal to do, in order to satisfy the hopes 
and expectations which have been excited, and which, I assure 
you, are confidently entertained. 

Of the effects of this contempt I know nobody, however, who 
have so much reason to repent as the officers of his majesty's 
wavy. If they had triumphed, it would only have been over half 
a dozen of fir frigates, with bits of bunting at their mast's heads. 
They were sure to gain no reputation in the contest; and, if they 
were defeated, what was their lot ? The worst of it is, they them- 
selves did, in some measure, contribute to their own ill fate ; for, 
of all men living, none spoke of " poor Jonathan" with so much 
contempt. To read their letters, or the letters which our news- 
paper people pretended to have received from them at the outset 
of the war, one would have thought that they would hardly have 
condescended to return a shot from a bunting ship. And now, 
to see that bit of bunting flying so often over the British flag ! 
Oh ! it is stinging beyond expression. The people in the coun- 
try cannot think how it is. There are some people who are for 
taking the American commodores at their word, and ascribing 
their victories to the immediate intervention of Providence. Both 
Perry and M'Donough begin their despatches by saying, " Al- 
mighty God has given us a victory." Some of their clergy, upon 
this ground alone, call them Christian heroes, and compare them 
to Joshua, who, by the by, was a Jew. I observe, that when 
any of them got beaten, they say nothing about supernatural 
agency ; yet there is still a victory on one side or the other ; and 
if they ascribe their victories to such agency, why not ascribe 
mir victories, and of course their own defeats, to this same over- 
ruling cause ? If Mr. Madison had told the congress, that " Al- 
mighty God had been pleased to enable the enemy to burn their 
■Capitol," how they would have stared at him ? Yet, surely, he 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 295 

might have said (hat with as much reason as Commodore M'Do- 
nough ascribed his victory to such interposition. If Commodore 
Perry, who captured our fleet on lake Erie, had been met at 
New York with looks of perfect indifference, instead of bein<r 
feasted and toasted as he was, and had been told that the cause of 
this was, that he had gained no victory, even according to his 
own official account — how silly he would have looked ! And yet 
he could have no reason to complain. I perceive, also, many 
other instances of this aping propensity in the Americans. It is 
the " honourable William Jones, Secretary of the Navy ;" the 
*' honourable the Mayor of New- York ;" " his honour the Chief 
Justice;" and even the members of congress call one another 
"honourable gentlemen," and (heir "honourable friends." I -was 
not, till of late, aware that this sickly taste was become so preva- 
lent in America. This is, indeed, contemptible ; and England 
will have, in a few years, a much better ground of reliance for 
success, in this change of national character in America than in 
the force of our arms. When once the hankering after titles be- 
comes general in that country ; when once riches will have 
produced that effect, the country will become an easy prey to an 
old compact, and easily-wielded government like ours. When 
men find that they cannot obtain titles under the form of govern- 
ment now existing, they will, as soon as they have the opportu- 
nity, sell the country itself to any sovereign who will gratify their 
base ambition. This is the slovb poison that is at work on the 
American constitution. It will proceed, unless speedily checked, 
to the utter destruction of that which it has assailed. Our best 
way is to make peace with them now, and leave this poison 
to work. By the time they get to " right honourables' 1 we shall 
be ready to receive their allegiance. When the bit of bunting 
comes to be exchanged for some sort of armorial thing, the fel- 
lows, who now " fight like blood thirsty savages," as our papers 
say, will become as tame and as timid as sheep. I am, &c. &c, 

William Cobbett. 



TO THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL— ON THE AMERICAN WAR, 

My Lord, 

The resolutions in the Common Council were moved by 
Mr. Waitbman, who, in a very clear and strong manner, described 
the principle and practice of the property tax ; and Mr. Alder- 
man Wood gave a horrid instance of its operation. But it was 
not till Mr. Alderman Heygate spoke that the right string was 
touched. lie said that the American war was the catrse of the 



29t> Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

continuation of the tax ; and that the people ought to petition 
acainst that continuation. He was deceived as to the new ob- 
jects of the war. He does not appear to know any thing about 
those * maritime rights" of which he talked. The Americans 
have denied us no maritime right ; that is to say, nothing that 
any writer on public law ; nothing that any usage of nations ; 
nothing that any principle, any maxim, any practice, even of 
our own, at any former period, has held forth as a right There- 
fore, the object of the war is now as good, at least, as it ever was ; 
and, indeed, it is now not in opposition to any principle of public 
law, it being clear, that we have a right to make conquests in 
America, if we have but the might. The " Whigs," then, 
must not think to shuffle off to the other side, and to be thought 
consistent in opposing the war, (which they at first pledged them- 
selves to support,) upon the ground that its object has been 
changed. If it has been changed, it has been changed for the 
better ; from the right of impressment to the right of conquest. 

But, my lord, the speech, in this debate, which is most wor- 
thy of notice, is that of Sir William Curtis, knight and alderman ; 
or, I believe, faith, a baronet. He said that he wished for peace 
with the Americans, but not till they had been " confoundedly 
well FLOGGED." This sentiment of Sir William has given 
rise to a jeu d' esprit of a correspondent, which jeu d'esprit ex- 
hibits pretty correctly the view which the Americans will take of 
the matter ; I will, therefore, though no admirer of doggerel, in- 
sert it by way of note.* But, my lord, this was no act of folly 
in the baronet. He knew well what he was about. Sir William 
Curtis is no fool: He is, perhaps, as much the opposite of a fool 
as any man in England. He knew that this seemingly-blundering 
phrase was the very thing to hit the taste of the far greater part 
of his audience ; and, while they were •' laughing" (as it is said) 
at it, he was, in his sleeve, laughing at them. He sees, as clearly 
as you and I, that there is very little chance of our beating the 
Yankees ; but he sees, that it is the folly of the day to speak of 
them with contempt, and it answers his purpose to indulge the 
sentiment as much as he can, without prejudice to his future elec- 

• " THE MICE IN COUNCIL." 

The Council of Mice (to know what to be at) 
Jtesolv'd that a bell should be put on the Cat ; 
But, when come to the pinch, there was no one could tell 
How to find out the heroes to put on the bell. 
So, when Alderman Will (while his neighbour he jogg'd) 
Made a move to resolve, " That the Yankees befiogg'd," 
All those look'd about them, who relish'd the dash, 
To seek for the floggers to lay on the lash ; 
Hut, looking in vain, in a short time the whole 
Of the Council broke up, and skipt to their hole. ■ „ „ 

V l PUSS. 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq~. 29 7 

tion. That man who gives his support to the property tax, even 
at this day, and yet contrives that those who so bitterly complain 
of it shall call him. " honest Will Curtis," is no fool, my lord ; 
but, on the contrary, an uncommonly discerning and adroit fel- 
low. 

It is now said, that we have relaxed in our demands On Ame- 
rica, and that peace is at hand. I hope it is, with all my heart ; 
but we must not only relax, we must give up all demands, before 
we shall have peace. I foresee the likelihood of our attempting 
to claim the accomplishment of the object of the war, if peace be 
made without our formally giving up our claim of right to impress 
people on board of American ships on the high seas. Our put- 
ting this claimed right into practice was the sole cause of the war ; 
and, therefore, if peace be made, and Jhis question be passed 
over in silence, we shall, as to the result of the war, claim un- 
qualified success ; and, I think, I shall hear those same venal 
writers, who have long told us that the war was, on our part, a 
war for reducing the Americans to unconditional submission s 
for deposing Mr. Madison ; for extinguishing anarchical go- 
vemment ; I think I shall hear these same writers assert, that all 
we wanted was to maintain this maritime right ; and that, as the 
Americans had made peace without our making any stipulation 
on the subject, we had won the object of the war; and, of course, 
that the war had been just, necessary, and successful. 

Foreseeing this ; foreseeing that they will attempt to creep out 
this way, I, as is the custom with vermin-catchers, shall now, be- 
forehand, stop up their hole. The case is this : We stopped 
American ships on the high seas, in order, as we alleged, to im- 
press our seamen from on board of them ; and we not only im- 
pressed British subjects, but many republicans along with them. 
Mr. Madison said we had no right to take any persons whatever 
out of American ships on the high seas ; and, after complaining 
for years, in vain, he declared war against us, in order to compel 
us to cease this our practice. We were then at war with France, 
and he was a neutral. Our war with France has since ceased; 
and, of course, our impressments would now have ceased, though 
he had not gone to war. Our character of belligerent, and his 
character of neutral, ceasing with our war against France, our 
impressments would also have ceased. If we make peace with 
him now, and are at war with nobody else, we shall, of course, 
not impress. The practice will have ceased. That is all that he 
wants. That is all that he went to war for. He needs no stipu- 
lation upon the subject. He has resisted the practice by force 
of arms. The practice ceases, and he makes peace. It may be 
said that we shall, under like circumstances, revive the practice ; 
and, if we do, he will revive his resistance. He is not at war to 
obtain from us any acknowledgment that our practice was unjust : 

38 






298 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

for he does not admit the point to be matter of doubt ; and, be- 
sides, he knows that such acknowledgment would be of no use. 
So that, if we had made peace with him, the moment the French 
peace had caused the excuse for impressments to cease, the 
matter would have stood just as it will now stand, without any 
stipulation on the subject. Neither party will have given up the 
point, and yet the war will be at an end, the European peace 
having taken oat of existence the ground of quarrel. 

What a pity, then, my lord, that you and your master had not 
followed ray advice, and made peace the moment the European 
war was at an end ! Come, my lord, be candid towards me, and 
confess that, for once, I gave you good advice. By not following 
that advice, you have got into what is vulgarly called a hobble. 
You now perceive clearly, that, to continue the war, is to incur 
a certain enormous expense, and to expose the country to great 
danger Of further disgrace ; while to make peace, as the conflict 
now stands, is really to be beaten; and, what is still worse, to 
have created, by this very war, a most formidable naval rival. 

Let me now take another article from the Times newspaper, 
that oracle of all the fools in England, whether high or low. It 
is full of matter for observation, refutation, or ridicule; it is a 
complete picture of the mass of the public mind upon this sub- 
ject ; a mixture of folly, spite, error, and falsehood ; and is well 
worthy of close attention. 

" If we could give credit to reports circulated yesterday with 
much confidence, we should believe that ministers had sacrificed 
the glory and the best interests of the country by a premature 
peace with the Americans, at the moment when the latter are on 
the very verge of bankruptcy. Unfortunately, however, for the 
credit of this assertion, we at the same time learn, that most ac- 
tive measures are pursuing for detaching from the dominion of the 
enemy an important part of his territory. Accounts from Ber- 
muda to the 1 1th ultimo inform us, that all the disposable shipping 
in that quarter have been sent off to the Mississippi. Sir Alexan- 
der Cochrane left Halifax at the latter end of October for the same 
destination ; and a large body of troops from Jamaica was ex- 
pected to assemble at the same point. The American government 
has openly manifested such extravagant vietfs of aggrandizement, 
that our eyes ought to be opened to its measureless ambition ; and 
we ought to curb its excesses in time. It is, doubtless, with a 
view to this just and necessary policy, that government has in- 
curred the expense of such extensive military and naval prepara- 
tions ; and it can hardly be supposed, that whilst they are so 
largely sacrificing the national resources with one hand, they will 
render the object of the sacrifice altogether null with the other* 
Nevertheless, policies that peace with America would be signet' 
before the end of the current month, were yesterday done in the 



tellers of William Cobbell, Esq. 299 

city so high as thirty guineas to return one hundred. It was even 
asserted, though without foundation, that the preliminaries had 
been already digested, and received the signatures of the com- 
missioners on the 3d instant. We have, however, some reason 
to belive that the speculations on this subject are influenced, in 
some measure, by secret information, issued, for the most unworthy 
' purposes, from the hotel of the American legation at Ghent. Af- 
ter what has been seen of the total want of principle in American 
statesmen of the Jeffersonian school, the world would not be 
much astonished to learn that one of the American negotiators 
had turned his situation to a profitable account, by speculating 
both at Paris and London on the result of the negotiation. Certain 
it is, that letters received yesterday from the French capital, re- 
lative to the proceedings at Ghent, contain intimations like those 
which have been circulated here on American authority; viz. that 
the new proposals of the British will be acceded to on or before 
the beginning of the new year, provided that no better terms can, 
ere then, be obtained. The Liverpool frigate is arrived at Ports- 
mouth, from the coast of America, as is his majesty's ship Pene- 
lope, from Halifax. By these conveyances various and contra- 
dictory intelligence has been received. On the one hand, it was 
reported that an armistice had taken place between the troops on 
both sides, iu America : on the other, that General Drummond 
had defeated Brown and Izard with great loss, and forced them 
to blow up Fort Erie, and retire with the shattered remains of 
their forces to Sackett's Harbour. The first of these reports is 
altogether unfounded ; the latter is, at least, premature. At the 
date of the last advices, Fort Erie continued in possession of the 
enemy ; but General Drummond, having received additional rein- 
forcements, was expected soon to make an attack on the position. 
Commodore Chauncey's fleet was still blockaded in Sackett's 
Harbour by Sir James Yeo ; but it was not understood that any 
attack would be made on that place, by land or water, before the 
winter set in. Having mentioned our naval commander on Lake 
Ontario, it is but right to notice that be is to be succeeded in 
command by Commodore Owen, as Sir George Prevost is, at the 
same time, to be by Sir George Murray. The comparatively 
small magnitude of our Lake squadrons, may, perhaps, afford a 
reason (or at least an official argument) for not employing one of 
our first admirals on that service ; but why one of the first generals 
that we possess is not charged with the management of so ex- 
tremely important a land war, it is difficult to guess. The officer 
thus mentioned may, for aught we know, be a person of ability : 
certainly his name, to those who remember Ferrol and Tarragona, 
cannot but be rather ominous ; but the nation at large is really 
indignant at the sort of apathy displayed on this occasion by ge- 
nerals of higher rank and celebrity, who ought not to have d«* 



300 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esf 

clined (he American command, merely because it did not promise 
to be so lucrative as some others. National gratitude has, perhaps, 
been displayed with premature liberality, if those who have re- 
ceived honours and rewards for former services are to hold back, 
in -proud indifference, when their country once more needs their 
presence in the field of honour. The American navy grows under 
the pressure of a contest with the greatest naval power that ever * 
existed ! Paradoxical as this appears, it is a simple fact ; and it 
proves more than a thousand arguments the absolute impossibility 
there is of our concluding a peace, at the present moment, without 
rendering ourselves the contempt of our antagonists, and the 
ridicule of all the world beside* Shall we ALLOW the Guer- 
riere to get to sea with impunity ; and to bear to every part of 
the world a visible record of our shame, in that defeat, which 
entailed on us so many subsequent disgraces ? The new frigate 
of that name, mounting 64 guns, is at Philadelphia, nearly ready 
for sea. The Washington, another new ship, carrying 90 guns, 
is fitting very fast for sea at Boston ; and the Independence, of 98, 
has been recently constructed at Portsmouth., in New-Hampshire. 
The last-mentioned vessel is considered to be more than a match 
for the largest man of war ever built in England. She is manned 
with a full complement of 1,000 prime sailors ; and what is also 
of the utmost consequence, her weight of metal is far superior 
to that of any ship in our navy, since her heaviest shot are not 
less than 68 pounders. When we have received so many melan- 
choly proofs of the effect produced by this superiority in weight 
of metal, and when we have had no less than two years and a half 
to profit by the painful lessons, it must indicate absolute infatua- 
tion, if we have not adopted some measures to place our seamen 
on an equality with those whom they have to oppose." 

And now, my lord, how different is this language from that of 
the speeches in which the American naval force was described 
as consisting of " half a dozen fir frigates, with bits of striped 
bunting at their mast heads!" I always said, that this war, if con- 
tinued for any length of time, would create a navy, a formidable 
navy, in America ; and is not this creation going on at a great 
rate ? Yet, while this empty fool is exciting our alarms about the 
Yankee navy, he is crying out against peace, because Mr. Madi- 
son's government is on the " very verge of bankruptcy." 
Without stopping to observe that this is a servile imitation of the 
language of " the great statesman now no more," in the year 1794, 
as to the state of France, just 20 years before the war with her 
ended, how stupid must the man be to rely upon the financial dif- 
ficulties of America, one moment, and the next, represent her as 
creating a great navy quicker than navy was ever before created ! 
Pray, mark the fool, my lord. He says, that " the American 
navy grows under the pressure of the greatest naval power that 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 301 

ever existed." Well, and what is his remedy ? To remove the 
rause? Intake off that fecund pressure? No; but precisely the 
contrary ; for, says he, the fact " proves more than a thousand ar- 
guments the absolute impossibility there is of our concluding (i 
peace, at the present moment, without rendering ourselves the co??- 
tempt of our antagonist, and the ridicule of all the world besides ;'* 
which, being interpreted, means, that the American navy having 
grown hitherto under our pressure, we ought to continue the pres- 
sure, in ordft* to be sure to make it grow to so large a size, that 
we may make peace with it without seeming to yield to an infe- 
rior force. If the words have any meaning, this it is. 

But, my lord, the description of the new Yankee ships is false, 
and wilfully false. It comes, it is said, from Halifax, our great 
naval rendezvous ; and is well calculated to provide, beforehand, 
for the result of combats, which may take place, or, perhaps, 
may not take place, with the Washington, the Independence, 
and, the Guerriere. I told your lordship, that the American pa- 
pers said that the Washington was launched at Portsmouth, in 
New-Hampshire ; and that she was a 74. Why have these Ha- 
lifax correspondents swelled her up to a 90 gun ship ? I have 
seen, in the American papers, nothing at all about the Indepen- 
dence; but I know that the official report of the secretary of 
the American navy, last year, spoke of no larger ships than 74's 
being on the stocks ; and if the American navy-board build 00's 
and 98's, and charge the people only for 74's, the practice there 
is widely different from ours. How many guns the Guerriere may 
carry I know not ; but I believe the description of her to be as 
false as that of the other two. But, it is but too easy for the 
world to perceive the motive for these exaggerated descriptions 
of the force of the American ships; and it cannot fail to produce 
•a very bad impression, with regard to us, amongst the people of 
America, whose eyes are constantly upon us, and who naturally 
and justly seize on all attempts of this sort, as subjects of the 
most poignant ridicule. 

As to what this foofish man says about ihe future command of 
our army, why should he be so very anxious to see " one of our 
first generals" in Canada ? He, who spoke of the American army 
with so much contempt? And, besides, how does he know that 
we have a better than Sir George Prevost ? In a late number of 
his paper, this man observed, that a more famous commander was 
necessary to prevent our men from deserting. He said : — "Too 
deeply have we felt the disgrace of being beaten by land and 
water, in the last campaign, to tolerate the chance of similar indig- 
nities in the next. Besides, we daily see stronger reasons for a 
hot and short war, when we contemplate the wasting effect of 
dilatoriness. Our battalions suffer much from disease, but much 
more from desertion, The temptations to this crime, which the 






302 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

Americans offer, are too strong to be resisted by numbers of our 
soldiery. We must not shut our eyes to the fallibilitymf human 
nature, to the influence of example, to the strength of allurement. 
The best, the only way to keep the soldier to his colours, is to 
place him under a commander to whom he can look up with pride 
and confidence, and who will lead him into active and continuous 
service throughout a whole campaign." — So, then, the Americans 
hold out temptations, do they ? And the remedy is to send a 
commander that the soldiers shall be proud of, and tftit shall keep 
them constantly employed ! And this will make them not dispos- 
ed to yield to the Yankee temptations ! I could point out a better 
remedy, my lord ; and if you will engage that I shall not have my 
ears cropped off for so doing, you shall have my remedy. As it 
is I shall keep it to myself. But what a beast this writer must 
be or what beasts must he look upon his readers as being, to talk 
at this rate? If he were paid by Mr. Madison he could not serve 
his cause more effectually than he now does. 

I am, &c. &c» 

Wm. Cobbett. 

P. S. The London common hall have resolved, that they do 
not like the property tax ; but they seem to like the American 
war very much. I observed to your lordship before, that this 
was very unjust. I do not call it foolish ; I do not call it stu- 
pid ; I call it realfy dishonest. They like the war ; they wish 
to have the war ; but they do not like to pay for it. It is paltry 
shuffiin " to say that the tax belonged solely to the war with 
France. Every man knows that the American war cannot go on 
without the tax ; and, therefore, to approve of the war is to ap- 
prove of the tax, as much as the approving of chicken at table is 
to approve of killing them. 



AMERICA. 

Mr. Cobbett, 

It appears, from the negotiations at Ghent, that we have 
demanded a new boundary line ; that the republicans shall give 
up part of their territory, including those lakes whereon, it is 
said, they have defeated us. As to the Americans having de- 
feated us, I do not believe a word of it ; it must be all false ; it 
is impossible that those poor ragged republicans should defeat a 
brave, rich, learned people, like us, who live under a constitu- 
tion of king, lords, and commons. Nobody believes it but the 
enemies to our government, the jacobins and levellers, who would 
overturn social order, and our holy religion. But it seems these 



• Letters of William Cobbetf, Esq. 303 

wretched republicans, these American vermin, are not willing to 
accept our modest proposals. Nothing will do, I see plainly ; 
nothing will do, but utterly to destroy these rascals ; there must 
not be left a man alive among them ; not one, not a single indivi- 
dual ; they are not fit to live; not fit to breathe the same air that 
we breathe; not fit to walk on the same globe. What right have 
they to property or territory T Are they not republicans ? Have 
they not a pure representation ? And are they not a nest of 
atheists ? Why, the poor wretches have no established religion, 
no bishops, no tythes, and no rates. It is not easy to conceive of 
a people in a more contemptible condition, and yet they have the 
matchless impudence to refuse to give up a part only of their 
territory, including those lakes, whereon, it i3 said, and falsely 
said, they have defeated us. I expect, then, to see shortly these 
infidels completely annihilated by the naval and military power 
of Great Britain, whose cause, as Mr. Ponsonby is reported to 
have said in the house of commons, has always been that of jus- 
tice and of liberty ; and thus, I trust, we shall maintain our noble 
character to the very last. That we can easily accomplish this 
task, no one but an enemy to social order and our holy religion 
will dare to doubt, or question. I shall rejoice at this event, as 
being one of the happiest, most religious, most humane, and most 
truly moral, that ever took place since the creation of the world. 
As for you, Mr. Cobbett, though I do not wish to be personal, 
yet I tell you frankly, that you are not a bit better than Mr. Ma- 
dison himself, who will shortly be deposed. — Yours, &c. 
Dec. 1814. F. 



TO THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL-ON THE AMERICAN WAR, 

My Lord, 

The nation begin to suspect, at last, that this American 
war may prove an unfortunate thing. If your lordship recollects, 
I taunted Johnny Bull, flouted him, and gibed him, when, at the 
outset of this war, he crowed and cock-cock caw'd, at the idea 
of giving the Yankees a good drubbing. If your lordship recol- 
lects that I flouted wise John, and told him that, at any rate, I 
hoped, if he was resolved to enjoy this sport, he would never let 
me hear him say a word about the property tax, or what he vul- 
garly calls the income tax. I knew, from the beginning, that I 
should see him galled here. I knew that I should have him on 
his hip ; and here I have him ; for he is now crying out against 
the tax, as loud as a pig under the knife of a butcher, though he, 
at the same time, seems to have no objection to the work of 
slaughtering going on. In short, so that he is safe himself, and 



304 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq* • 

pays nothing, his delight is in seeing war desolate the rest of the 
world. But he does not like to pay. Rather than pay he would 
give the world a chance of being at peace, and of ceasing to 
bleed. 

That so amiable a personage should meet with any rubs or cross- 
es in life, must, of course, be matter of regret with his friends, and 
must remind them of the maxim, that as virtue alone is not, in 
all cases, sufficient to ensure happiness in this world, the virtuous 
afflicted ought chiefly to rely on the world to come. This sort 
of reliance is very suitable to Johnny, at this time ; for he has 
not given the Yankees a drubbing ; and yet, the income tax 
sticks to him like birdlime. The Times newspaper cheers him, 
indeed, by telling him that he is causing the Yankees to pay 
taxes ; that, though he so sorely feels himself, he does not suffer 
in vain ; for that he is making others suffer too. To be sure, 
this is a consoling reflection ; but still it is not quiie sufficient to 
reconcile him to the continuation of the income tax, seeing that, 
when called on for the money, he sometimes forgets the delight of 
seeing others suffer, which he has enjoyed for his money. 

But now, my lord, leaving wise Johnny, amiable and honest 
Johnny, to his taxes and his hopes of giving the Yankees a drub- 
bing, permit me to remind your lordship, briefly, of the origin 
of this war ; for, if I have life to the end of it, this origin shall 
not be forgotten. It is necessary, at every stage, to keep it. 
steadily in view ; for unless we do this, we shall be wholly 
" bothered" out of it at last, as we were in the case of the 
French war. 

The war against France was a war against principles, at first ; 
it then became a war of conquest, and ended in being a war for 
deliverance. We set out with accusing our enemy with being 
dangerous, as disorganizes of ancient governments, and we 
ended with accusing them of being dangerous, as despots. The 
French were too free for us at the beginning, and too much en- 
slaved for us at the end ; and it was so contrived as to make more 
than half the world believe, that the Cossacks were the great 
champions of civil and political liberty. So that, when we 
came to the close, leaving the French nearly as we found them, not 
seeing tythes, monks, game-laws, gabeiles, corvees, bastiles,or seig- 
neurial courts re-established, we have spent more than a thousand 
millions of pounds, in. a war, of the first object of which we 
liad wholly lost sight. We will not have it thus, my lord, with 
regard! to the American war. We will not suffer its first object 
to" be lost sight of. Nobody, as to this point, shall be able to 
" bother' 9 any historian who is disposed to speak the truth. 

The war with America arose thus : We were at war with 
France ; America was neulra!. We not only exercised our known 
right o^ stopping American merchant ships at sea, to search them 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 305 

for enemy's goods, for troops in the enemy's service, and for 
goods contraband of war, which species of search, and of seizure, 
in case of detection, Mr. Madison did not oppose either by word 
or deed. This was a maritime right, sometimes disputed by 
Russia, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden ; but never given up by 
us, except for awhile, at a time of great danger. This right was 
never disputed by Mr. Madison during the French war ; the 
exercise of it he submitted to without complaint. This was our 
• 4 right of search ;" and this right was enjoyed by us, without 
any complaint on his part; and this is the right which many 
people think he opposed, and upon that ground they have approved 
of the war. 

But the war had nothing to do with this right, any more than 
it had to do with our right of bringing coals from Newcastle to 
London. The war was declared by Mr. Madison against us, be- 
cause we stopped American merchant ships upon the high seas, 
and impressed people out of them. We said, that we did this in 
order to recover our own seamen, who were frequently found 
serving in these American ships ; but it was notorious, the fact 
was never denied, and never can be denied, that we impressed thus 
great numbers of native Americans, forced them on board of our 
ships of war, and compelled them to submit to our discipline, and to 
risk their lives in fighting for us. These are facts which can never 
be denied. Mr. Madison, for years, called upon us to cease this 
practice. We did not cease. He repeatedly threatened war, if 
we persevered. We did persevere ; and, after years of remon- 
strance,!^, or, rather, the two houses of congress, the real represen- 
tatives of the people of America, declared war against us. 

Here, then, is the cause of the war ; the sole cause of the war ; 
war long threatened, and, at last, frankly declared, previous to any 
hostile act or movement on the part of Mr. Madison, or, rather, 
the congress. For, my lord, though Johnny Bull, wise Johnny, 
whose generosity would put all other nations into his own hap- 
py state ; though wise and generous John talks about Mr. Madi- 
son's hostility, it is, in fact, the hostility of the congress; that 
is to say, the hostility of the people; because the congress are the 
i real, and not the sham, representatives of the people; and be- 
cause the congress who declared, and who now support the war, 
have been chosen during the x?ar, and just before it. The mem- 
bers of the congress do not purchase their seats ; no seats can be 
bought or sold ; none of the members can get any thing for them- 
selves, or families, by their votes. So that, when they decide, it 
is, in reality, a majority of the people who decide ; and the peo- 
ple did decide that they would resist, by force of arms, the im- 
pressment of their seamen. 

The people here generally believe what that infamous print, 
lhe Times newspaper, tells them, that the people of America never 

39 



306 Leilas of William Cobbett, Esq, 

complained of such impressments ; but the truth is, that, long 
before, years before, the war was declared, complaints, and most 
bitter complaints, had rung through the country against these im- 
pressments. Letters from the impressed persons were published 
without end. Affidavits proving the facts. Representations 
enough to make a nation mad with resentment ; enough to drive 
even quakers to arms. None of these have our newspapers ever 
copied. None of these have they ever made known to their 
readers. They have published the harangues of Goodloe Harper, 
H. G. Otis, poor Timothy Pickering, and other would-be noblesse. 
They have given us every thing from the free press of America, 
at all calculated to cause it to be believed that the war is unpo- 
pular there ; but not a word on the other side ; not a word to let 
us see what were the real sentiments of the majority of the re- 
public. I wiil now lay before your lordship some of the com- 
plaints of the impressed Americans, as published in the American 
newspapers; for, I am convinced, that even you are not acquaint- 
ed fully of the nature and toue of those complaints, and, at any 
rate, the publications should, if possible, be rebutted on our part, 
seeing that they must produce such a hatred of us in the minds 
of the people of America, as will, if not by some means mollified, 
lead to a never ceasing hostility. Your lordship will perceive 
that these statements are sent forth with all the forms of judicial 
acts ; that they consist of statements made on oath ; that these 
statements are certified by legal magistrates, whose names are af- 
fixed to them ; and that, of course, they are calculated to have 
great weight with the public. It is not a bad way to make the case 
our own ; to suppose such complaints made in our papers against 
America, or any other nation ; and, then, to judge of the effect 
that those complaints would make on the people of England, 
recollecting that the Americans are not base and cowardly more 
than we are. 

[Here follow several depositions, copied from the newspapers, 
of impressed American seamen.] 

Now, my lord, I do not say that these sentiments are true. In 
spite of all the particular details of names, dates, and places ; in 
spite of oaths and certificates, they may be false ; but as it is to 
such statements that we owe this unfortunate war, we surely ought 
to endeavour to prove that some, at least, of these statements are 
false. The republican newspapers teem, and teemed long before 
the war, with publications of this sort. The blood of America 
was set boiling with such publications. The vole of congress, 
for the war, was the most popular vote ever given by that body. 
It is, therefore, of vast importance that these publications should 
be counteracted if possible. They are either true or false ; if the 
latter, as I would fain hope, they can be easily refuted ; if true, 
which it would be shocking to believe, certainly we ought to be 



Letters of William Cobbclt, Esq, 307 

very ready and forward to make atonement to the Americans for 
what they have suffered. 

These statements have, too, produced another most serious 
effect. They have filled the crews with the most implacable re- 
venge. To the usual motives of patriotism and glory, they have 
added the still more powerful motive of vengeance. Against 
crews, thus animated, men under the influence of the mere ordina- 
ry motive to bravery, really cannot he expected to succeed, with- 
out a great superiority of force. I leave your lordship to suppose 
what would be the effect of statements like these, if the case were 
OURS. If we were at peace with all the world, and were car- 
rying on our commerce agreeably to the la»i s of neutrality, while 
the Americans were at war with some other power ; and if the 
Americans were to impress Englishmen from on board English 
ships, bringing up coals from Newcastle to London, were to force 
them into their ships of war, compel them to fight for America ; 
and, in short, to occasion, in the English papers, statements such 
as I have above quoted : if this were the case, does your lord- 
ship think that we should be very quiet? And if such statements 
would be likely to set us in a flame, are we to suppose that they 
have had no effect on the Americans ? 

Here, my lord, as you well know, we have the real cause of 
that war, which, it is said, is now to engage a hundred thousand 
men, two hundred ships of war, and which cannot cost less than 
twenty millions a year. It has been asserted, that the congress 
declared war against us to assist Napoleon on the continent. This 
is so foolish, that the writers must think that they are addressing 
it to men little superior to brutes. It was impossible that the 
Americans could know where Napoleon was, when they declared 
war. It was impossible that their war should really aid him in his 
designs against Russia. It was against their interest that Russia 
should be crushed by any power, and especially by France. The 
other charge, that America, " like an assassin, attacked us in the 
dark" is equally false and foolish. How could an open declara- 
tion of war by a legislative assembly, after repeated discussion, 
be an act deserving such a description ? How could that be call- 
ed an attack in the dark, especially when it had been threatened 
for years, and when it was followed immediately by an offer for a 
truce, in order again to negotiate for peace ? 

Here we have the real origin of the war. Terminate as it will, 
this origin must not be forgotten, whatever efforts are made to put 
it out of our heads. When the war shall have ended, and we 
shall sit do*n to count the cost, this origin must be kept steadily 
before us. 

The Times and Courier are still labouring to persuade us that 
there will be a separation of the American states ; that the four 
New-England states will declare themselves independent of the 



i 



» Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

general government, and will form an alliance with old Eng» 
land. Now, my lord, mind, I pledge mj'self, that, if any such 
proposition be seriously made by the friends of the famous Cap- 
tain Henry, by the would-be noblesse of Massachusetts, they 
will very quickly be decorated, not with coats of arms, but with 
coats of tar and feathers. The people of New-England are 
" essentially republicans. 1 ' They have been, or, at least, a part of 
them, stimulated by very cunning men, to a violent opposition 
against Mr. Madison, and the war. But only let them see the 
real objects of the Pickerings, the Otises, the Quincys, &c. and 
the fall of these men is as certain as the return of spring after 
winter. It is not by a large majority that even the New-Eng- 
land states oppose the war. It is barely " touch-and-go" with 
the opposition, even there. What man in his senses, then, can 
place a moment's reliance on it? And, indeed, the only purpose 
that it is likely to answer, is, that of deceiving us, and inducing 
us to leave the New-England seaports safe places for the building 
of ships of war, and the fitting out of privateers. The leaving 
of that part of the union unmolested, while we attack the Southern 
State?, is just what suits America. She has, in New-England, 
unmolested ports and harbours, out of which to send forth ships of 
war to annoy our trade, and engage our navy, and into which to 
carry her rich prizes. The P#**#*#*#s, the 0****8, &c. 
I really believe to be traitors to their country ; or, at least, that 
they would sell themselves, if you and your master were not too 
honest to buy them. But hang them ! my lord, they are not worth 
your notice. They talk big, and hold themselves out as of great 
consequence ; but they are poor things. Indeed, my lord, they 
are. Timothy Pickering used to be thought a very honest man, 
but, after he was put out of office, he seems to have abandoned 
himself to the revenge which his disappointment created. 

He had not the virtue to follow the example of his venerable 
employer, Mr. Adams, who, upon being outvoted as president by 
Mr. JefFerson, said, " I only wished to obtain a majority of votes 
that I might serve my country, and now I shall endeavour to 
serve it by supporting him who has that majority.'' Timothy 
Pickering, who had been, to the astonishment of all the world, his 
secretary of state; who was no more fit for the office than your 
coachman would be fit for yours ; and who, of course, was inordi- 
nately proud of his sudden and unexpected elevation, became fu- 
rious at the election of Mr. Jefferson, and has ever since been 
in a sort of mad fit, doing a hundred things, for either of 
which, in England, he would be sent to jail for a year or two 
at least. The truth is, that Mr. Adams had the public good solely 
in view, and that Timothy had san eye solely to his private inte- 
rest. Hence the exactly opposite conduct of the two men, when 
the voice of the country put them both out of power. I am sure 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. SOft 

that your lordship, and your colleagues, especially your distinguish- 
ed colleague now at Vienna, would scorn to purchase traitors in 
any country ; but if you are so disposed ; if such men as the fa- 
mous Captain Henry could possibly prevail on you to lay out any 
of our money in this way, on the other side of the Atlantic, such 
men, though so much applauded in the Times newspaper, would 
not be worth your purchasing. 

This is the sort of stuff; this is the rubbish which the Times 
would have us rely upon for success against the republic! I be- 
seech your lordship to consider it, as it is, the grossest deception 
that ever was attempted to be palmed upon mankind. Mr. Madi- 
son cannot silence these men. He has no sops. He has none of 
that potent drug, of the possession of which, Smollet tells us, Sir 
Robert Walpole used to boast. They will, therefore, keep on 
barking ; but, my lord, be assured, that they are wholly unable 
to bite. 

I am, &c. &c. 

Wjvi. Cobbett. 



TO THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL— ON THE AMERICAN WAR. 

My Lord, 

It has all along been my wish to see England at peace with 
America. My reasons for this I have often explained ; and the 
mode I have pursued has been this ; to endeavour to prove that 
the grounds of hope of success held out to us by such writers as 
the Walters, are fallacious. The division of the states, the 
impeachment of Mr. Madison, the resistance of taxation, and 
the various other grounds of hope, I have endeavoured to show, 
were hollow, as much as was the expectation of sweepiug the 
ocean of the " half a dozen of fir frigates, with bits of striped bunt- 
iug at their mast heads." The task of counteracting these delu- 
sive hopes has increased in arduousness with the progress of the 
war. Beaten out of one hope, these writers have resorted to 
others ; and, as was the case in the last American war, pride, 
shame, and revenge, are mustered up, to prolong a war which 
policy has abandoned. 

There is, now, a new delusion on foot. Mr. Walter, the pro- 
prietor of the Times newspaper, who (shocking to think of!) has 
been a principal actor in producing this calamitous war, is now 
endeavouring to persuade the public that the president of Ame- 
rica mill be unable to raise the force voted by congress to com- 
plete the regular army of that great republic to 100,000 men, by 
way of ballot, or what Mr. Walter calls CONSCRIPTION. 



310 Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq, 

To be sure, this is a measure very well calculated to astound 
such a man as Mr. Walter, who knows nothing at all about the 
people of America ; who receives all his information through the 
very worst of all possible channels ; who appears to be extremely- 
ignorant himself; who publishes purely for gain ; who desires to 
flatter the follies and prejudices of his readers ; and who, finding 
himself the gainer by being the avowed enemy of freedom in eve- 
ry part of the world, has become, to say nothing of his breeding 
up, a mortal foe to the American government and people. Such 
a man, who had been led to suppose that the defence of a coun- 
try, like America, was inconsistent with freedom, naturally relied 
upon the overthrow of the government, the moment it attempted 
to raise an army to resist its invaders; such a man would natural- 
ly be, as he has been, almost smothered in the foam of his own 
malignity, upon seeing a measure like this coolly proposed by 
Mr. Monroe, (now secretary of war,) attentively considered by 
a committee of congress, and smoothly passing into a law, made, 
or to be made, by the real, and not the sham, representatives of 
a free people, elected by that people only a few months before, 
and knowing that they are again to be elected or rejected by that 
same people, a few months afterwards. This has astounded Mr. 
Walter. It has, apparently, given his brain a shock too rude for 
its powers of resistance. It has upset all his calculations ; and he 
is now crying out for a rebellion in America, as fiercely as he 
ever cried out for bullets, bayonets, halters, and gibbets, for the 
rebels in Ireland ; but, never losing sight of his old object, name- 
ly, to delude this nation into the hope that the measure must fail, 
and that, therefore, we ought to continue the war. 

Despicable, therefore, as this writer may be ; contemptible as 
is his stock of understanding ; mean and malignant as may be his 
motives, his efforts merit attention, and call upon us to counteract 
them without loss of time. In doing this, I must first take the 
best account that I can find of this grand measure of the American 
government, to which has been given the name of conscription. 
The following is the report of the bill, as republished by Mr. 
Walter himself: 

[Heie follows an analysis of the bill reported by the military 
committee on Mr. Monroe's plan.] 

Such is the measure which, Mr. Walter assures us, cannot be 
carried into effect ; but says, that if it could be carried into 
effect, would deprive us of Canada in a year, unless we sent out 
our " great national hero ;" and, indeed, that, under the bare pos- 
sibility of such a measure's succeeding, " we ought to cast aside 
all European politics" What a change, my lord ! This foolish 
gentleman used to tell us, that the Americans would be " reduced" 
as the old phrase was, in " a few weeks.'* He has often exhausted 
all his powers of speech to convince his readers, that this enemy 



, 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 311 

was too despicable to be treated with in the same sort of way that 
we treat with other nations. There is no expression of contempt, 
contained in our copious language, which he did not use towards 
America and her president. And this same foolish Mr. Walter 
now tells us, that so great is this same America, that, in order to 
meet her with a chance of success, we ought " to cast aside all 
European politics." 

I beg your lordship, now, to have the patience to read Mr. 
W alter's remarks, at full length, upon this measure of defence in 
America. The article is of consequence ; because, though com- 
ing from such a source, though proceeding from a son, or sons, of 
Old Walter of regency memory, it is what will give the cue to 
almost all the rich people in the metropolis, and to not a few of 
those in the country. After inserting this article, I will endea- 
vour to show its folly and its malice ; and, were the author any 
other than a Walter, I should not be afraid to promise to make 
him hide his head for shame. 

" No certain or official account of the rupture of the negotia- 
tions at Ghent has yet reached this country. Private letters, it 
is true, have been received, stating that the American commis- 
sioner, Mr. Adams, was about to set off for St. Petersburgh, and 
that Mr. Gallatin had proposed that a single individual on each 
side should be left at Ghent, to take advantage of any opening 
for renewing the negotiation ; but both these statements are at 
variance with those contained in other letters of the latest date 
from Ghent, received by the French mail of yesterday, according 
to which, the diplomatic intercourse still continued. We repeat, 
that we do not think this the point to which the public attention 
ought to be directed. We should look, not to the fallacious terms 
of an artful negotiation ; but to the infallible evidence of our ene- 
my's mind and intentions, displayed in his conduct. The bill 
for a conscription of the whole American population, is a measure 
that cannot be mistaken. Whilst such a bill is in progress, and 
before it is known whether the people will submit to its being 
carried into execution, it would be 7nadness to expect a peace. 
It would be madness to expect a peace with persons who have 
made up their minds to propose so desperate a measure to their 
countrymen ; for, either they must succeed, and then the intoxi- 
cation of their pride will render them utterly intractable ; or, 
(which is, indeed, more probable,) they must fail, and their failure 
must precipitate them from power, and, consequently, render 
treating with them impossible. 

" When an American gentleman of splendid attainments, some 
years since, composed his celebrated review of the conscription, 
code of that monster Buonaparte, he could not possibly foresee 
that his own country would, in so short a time, be subjected to 
the same barbarous humiliation. The prime and flower of the 



SI 2 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

American citizens are to be taken by lot! and delivered over id 
the marshals, who are to deliver them over to the officers autho- 
rized to receive them, who are to act at the discretion, and under 
the arbitrary direction of the president. Thus does Mr. Madi- 
son, from a simple republican magistrate, suddenly start up a mi- 
litary despot of the most sanguinary character — a double of the 
blood thirsty wretch at Elba. We are convinced that this sudden 
and violent shock to all republican feelings, to all the habits of 
the people in all parts of the union, cannot be made with impunity. 
Certain it is that this law cannot stand alone. To give it the least 
chance of being put in execution, it must be accompanied with all 
the other chapters of that bloody code by which France was 
disgraced, and barbarized, and demoralized. Who is to hunt 
down the refractory conscripts ? Who is to drag them, chained to- 
gether in rows, to the head-quarters of the military division f 
Who is to punish them, their parents, relations, and friends ? Even 
Buonaparte was many years in bringing to its diabolical perfection 
the machinery of his system ; and carefully as Mr. Monroe may 
have studied in that accursed school, it cannot be supposed that 
he has, at one flight, placed himself on a level with his great in- 
structor. It is highly probable that many of the men who have 
laboured in the details of oppression and violence, under the dis- 
turber of Europe, may have, by this time, made their way to 
America, where they will doubtless receive a cordial welcome 
from Mr. Madison, and be set to work to rivet the collar on the. 
necks of the American citizens; but we own that, ' with all 
appliances and means to boot,' the president, in our opinion, must 
fail. Nevertheless, it would be most dangerous to suffer such an 
opinion to produce the slightest relaxation in our efforts. The 
British government should act as if it saw Mr. Monroe at the 
head of his hundred thousand regulars, well disciplined and 
equipped, carrying the war, as he distinctly threatens he will do, 
into the very heart of Canada. Late as it is, we must awake. 
Eight months ago, the Duke of Wellington, with his army might 
have fallen like a thunderbolt upon the Washington cabinet, leav- 
ing them no time for conscriptions, no means of collecting French 
officers to discipline their troops, no opportunity to intrigue for 
friendship and support among the continental powers of Europe. 
It is not yet too late for striking a decisive blow ; but that blow 
must be struck with all onr heart, and with all our strength. Let 
us but conceive the proposed hundred thousand regulars embodied 
in the course of the ensuing spring. Does any one believe that, 
without a mighty effort on our part, the Canadas could be retained 
another year ? Would not the exultation of seeing himself at the 
head of such a force, urge Mr. Madison, at all hazards, to com- 
plete his often-tried invasion ? Even if his scheme should but 
partially succeed, and he should be only able to drag on a defen- 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 31 3 

sive war for another twelvemonths, who knows what allies that 
period may stir up for him, under the false pretences of regard 
for neutral rights, and for the liberty of the seas ? On our side, to 
conclude a peace at the present moment, would be to confess our- 
selves intimidated by the warlike preparations of the enemy. It 
seems, therefore, that we have but one path to follow. What- 
ever was the force destined to act against America, before this 
DARING BILL of Mr. Monroe's was thought of, let that force 
instantly be doubled ; let us cast aside all European politics 
that cross this great and paramount object of ' our exertions. 
Let a general of commanding name be at once despatched to the 
seat of war. We have often said, and we repeat it, that America 
is a scene on which the Duke of Wellington's talents might be 
displayed far more beneficially to his country, than they can pos- 
sibly be in the courtly circles of the Tbuillieres ; but if his grace 
must necessarily be confined to the dull round of diplomatic bu- 
siness, at least, let some officer be sent, whom the general voice 
of the army may designate as most like in skill and enterprise to 
our great national hero. Fatal experience has shown us, that no 
effort of such an enemy is to be overlooked. When the flag of 
the Guerriere was struck, we saw in it that disastrous omen, 
which has since been but too sadly verified on the ocean, and ori 
the lakes. The triumphs of the American navy have inspired 
even their privateers with remarkable audacity. The present pa- 
pers mention the cruises of the Peacock, the Chasseur, and the 
Mammoth, all of which were very successful, and all ventured on 
the coast of England and Ireland. The two latter, being Ame- 
rican built, outsailed every thing that gave them chase. This is 
a circumstance requiring strict attention on the part of our ad- 
miralty. Surely there must be some discoverable and imitable 
cause of a celerity in sailing, which is so important a point of na- 
val tactics. Mr. Fulton, of Catamaran memory, appears to have 
employed himself on a naval machine of singular powers. It is 
described as a steam frigate, and is intended to carry red-hot shot 
of one hundred pounds weight. W r hen we remember how con- 
trary to expectation was the tremendous effect of the batteries 
of the Dardanelles, we cannot entirely dismiss from our minds 
all apprehension of the effect of this new machine of Mr. 
Fulton's.'' 

Before I proceed to inquire into the justice of these charges 
against Mr. Monroe's bill, I cannot refrain from noticing, in a par- 
ticular manner, one phrase of this article. Mr. Walter (for, 
hire he whom he will to write for him, he is the author) calls the 
bill, " this DARING bill of Mr. Monroe's." Mr. Walter is no 
grammarian, my lord ; nor is it necessary that he should be, to 
qualify him for addressing such people as the well-attired rabble 
of England, who are his readers. But this is not the thing that 

40 



.314 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

I have in view ; I want your lordship to mark the word " DAR- 
ING," as applied to this bill : as if it were a thing which the re- 
public ought not to think of without our permission ; as if it were 
like the act of a servant taking up a sword and challenging his 
master ; as if it a were a trait of insolence unbearable in a nation 
at war with big John Bull, to take effectual means to resist his at- 
tacks on their shores ; as if it were audacious in them to provide 
the means of preventing their cities, towns, and villages, from be- 
ing plundered or burnt. This Mr. Walter, only a few days ago, 
called Mr. Jefferson " liar and slave." He has a hundred times 
called Mr. Madison a miscreant, a traitor, a liar, a villain ; and 
bas as often insisted that no peace ought ever to be made with 
him. He has frequently insisted that Mr. Madison and his fac- 
tion (the majority of Congress) must be hurled from their seats, 
He has called Mr. Jefferson the old serpent. In short, it is the 
next to impossible to think of any vile term or epithet, which thia 
author has not applied to the American president, and the majority 
of that congress which is the real representation of the Ameri- 
can people. And yet he has the cool impudence to speak of this 
bill, this measure of defence, as if it were something insolent to- 
wards us. 

The truth is, my lord, we have so long had to deal with Bast 
Indians, and Portuguese, and Spaniards, and Italians, and Ger- 
mans, and Dutchmen, and Russians, and Imperialist Frenchmen, 
that we are quite spoiled for a dealing with the Americans. We 
have, at last, arrived at such a pitch, that we regard it as inso- 
lence in any people even to talk of resisting us. Mr. Walter is, 
in this respect, but the mouth-piece of his readers. We must 
correct ourselves as to this way of thinking and talking, if the 
war with America continue ; or we shall be exposed to the deri- 
sion of the whole world. 

Now, then, as to Mr. Monroe's measure. Mr. Walter describes 
it as a conscription ; says that it will subject the people to bar- 
barous humiliation ; says that it makes the president a military 
despot of the most sanguinary character ; asks who is to chain 
the conscripts, and drag them to the headquarters of the military 
division ; calls the raising of this force putting a collar on tin 
necks of the American citizens. 

These are the charges which Mr. Walter prefers against this 
grand measure of the republic ; and he observes, that *' when an 
American gentleman of splendid attainments, some years ago> 
composed his celebrated review of the conscription code of that 
monster Buonaparte, he could not possibly foresee that his own 
country would so soon be subjected to the same barbarous hu- 
miliation." This gentleman of " splendid attainments'" was a 
Mr. Walsh of Philadelphia, who, having been in France, came 
over to England, where, under the patronage of the friends of 



Letters of William Cobbell, £• 




























nnd 


' 

















bribery and corruption, he wrote and publi 
calculated to aid their views. This pamphle 
that the author was one of those Americai 
vain splendour that they here behold, and 
sharing in it, have been induced to apostatize fo 
of their own republican government. This y 
work was really a very poor performance, a bo 
sistencies, and, indeed, with downright falsehc 
turned by the flatteries of the hireling write 
here ; and I should not wonder if his work ac 
speakable felicity of hearing, that even his no 
in a conversation between two lords. The grf 
of the work, was, that it was i\pt the work c 
No : it was said to be the work of an Americc 
was a friend of the French, and not at all dis 
in describing their misery. This was the frai : 
which the work got into circulation. Mr. W 
the hands of crafty men, who dazzled him wil 

But, now, as to the resemblance between 
sure and the conscription of Napoleon : 

1st. The French conscription was decr< 
despot, assisted by an assembly whom the pe 
The levy in America, is ordered by a law, [ 
gress, who are the real, and not the sham, representatives ot the 
people ; who have recently been freely chosen by the people ; 
and who, if they desire to be re-elected, must act so as to please 
the people ; the time of their reelection being near at hand. 

2d. 'The French conscript was called out to fight for the sup- 
port and aggrandizement of a particular family; and for the sup- 
port also of nobles in the possession of their titles and estates. 
It was the honour of the crown that the Frenchmen was called 
on to fight for, and that, too, in distant lands. The American 
citizen is called out to defend no sovereign family, no crown, no 
nobles, to give no security, and to gain no renown for them, or 
any of them ; but to fight for the safety, liberty, and honour of a 
country, where there are no distinctions of rank, and where, of 
course, every individual fights, when he does fight, in his own 
cause as much as in the cause of the president himself. 

3d. The French conscription compelled personal service. 
The American levy contains no such compulsion. Every twenty- 
five men, between the ages of IB and 45, are to furnish one man» 
If no one of the twenty-five will serve in person, the whole twenty- 
five together, are, according to their property, to pay a certain 
■sum of money. 

4th. The French conscript, while he left, perhaps, an aged 
(father or mother at home, living in penury, was fighting for an 
&nperor, whose wife carried about her person; at the nation's ex- 



i 



316 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

pense, decorations, which cost as much as would have fed thou- 
sands of families for a year. The American levyman knows 
that his government, all taken together, president, congress, 
judges, secretaries, clerks and all, do not cost so much in a year 
as is swallowed by an imperial family in one single day. 

5th. France was not invaded. This is a very material point. 
America was, and is invaded. Her villages, towns, and cities, 
jiave been plundered and burnt. A continuation of this mode 
Jf warfare has been distinctly declared by our admiral to have 
bi3en resolved on. It is invasion, it is devastation, it is fire, it is 
tfte sword, it is plunder at their very doors, and in their very 
dwellings on the coast, that the American levy are called forth to 
jrepel, to punish, or to prevent. ,It is no possible, no imaginary, 
do distant danger, that has called forth this measure from the con- 
gress : it is actual invasion; it is an enemy in the country, there 
laying waste, plundering, and killing ; lawfully, if you please ; 
but that is no matter. If Napoleon had landed an army here, he 
would have been justified in so doing by the laws of war ; but 
when we expected him even to make the attempt at invasion, did 
we confine ourselves to measures like this of Mr. Monroe ? Did 
we not call upon the whole of the people to be ready to come out 
under martial law ? But I am here anticipating another part of 
the subject of my letter. 

So much, then, for the resemblance between the French con- 
scription and the American levy ; and I am sure that your lord- 
ship will allow, that they no more resemble one another than this 
Register resembles the Times newspaper. What, then, becomes 
of Mr. Walter's bombastical trash about sanguinary desfots and 
chained conscripts ? Yet, he will find dupes ! He has found 
dupes for many years ; and he will continue to find them upon this 
subject, I fear, till we shall see an American fleet on the coast of 
Ireland ; an occurrence more probable than, at one time, was 
thought the capture of an English frigate by a republican thing 
with a bit of striped bunting at its mast heady as Mr. Canning 
thought proper to describe the American frigates. 

But, my lord, it is not with the French conscription alone that 
I mean to accompany the republican levy. Let us see (for that 
will bring the thing home to us) what is the nature of this measure 
of Mr. Monroe, compared with our militias. 

We have two or three militias ; but there are two clearly dis- 
tinguished from each other : one is called the militia, and the 
other the local militia. The former consists of men called out 
by BALLOT, WITHOUT ANY REGARD TO THE 
AMOUNT OF THEIR PROPERTY. Each man, so called 
on, must serve in person, or must, out of his own pocket, find a 
man to serve in his stead ; and seeing that the service is, in all 
respects, except that of being sent over sea, the same as that of 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 31 7 

regular soldiers ; seeing that the man may be marched to any 
part of <be kingdom, may be quartered in camp, in barracks, and 
is subjected to all military pains and penalties, the price of sub- 
stitutes has long been so high that no labourer or journeyman has, 
out of his own pocket, been able to procure a substitute. Now, 
you see, there is a wide difference here ; for the man of small 
means in America has twenty-four others to assist him in paying 
the money necessary to engage a substitute. Twenty-five men 
are put into a class. If one of them goes to serve, the others are 
able to make him a handsome compensation. If one of them choose 
to serve, the money, in lieu of the service of one man, is to be 
collected from twenty-five men. And, which is the beauty of this 
admirable scheme, when it comes to the payment of money, each 
person is to pay, not the same sum, but a sum in proportion to 
the amount of his means. In England, the names of all of cer- 
tain ages, in each parish, are put into a box, out of which the 
number wanted are drawn. It happens, of course, that, of four, 
one is a rich merchant, another a farmer, another a journeyman 
tailor, and another a labourer. Each is to serve in person, or find 
a substitute. The price of the substitute is as high for the poor 
as for the rich. The two latter, therefore, who have no property 
to defend, must serve, or they must rake together the means of 
paying for the defence of the property of the rich, and thus in- 
volve themselves in debt, and expose their families, if they have 
any, to misery. But, you see, Mr. Monroe's scheme most ef- 
fectually provides against this. It puts all the male population, 
between 18 and 45, into classes of twenty-five men. Each class 
is to send one man. If they agree amongst themselves who shall 
go, the thing is done. If none of them choose to go, then the 
twenty-five are to pay a sum of money ; but here they are not to 
pay alike ; the journeyman tailor and the labourer are not to pay 
like the merchant and the farmer ; every man of the twenty-five 
is to pay in proportion to his property ; and thus does the burden 
of defence fall, with arithmetical correctness, on the thing to be 
defended. 

And this, my lord, is what Mr. Walter calls a ft conscription ;" 
this he calls a measure of " barbarous humiliation" to the peo- 
ple of America ; for proposing this measure he calls Mr. Madison 
a " sanguinary despot;" this is the measure which, he says, 
will never be submitted to by the republicans. The foolish man 
will soon have to announce his astonishment at the complete suc- 
cess of the measure ; if he has not, I will acknowledge myself to 
be as great a fool as he. 

But, to proceed, our local militia were to serve only within 
their several counties, but their service has now been extended ; 
though, except in cases of urgency, they are to be called out 
only a month in the year. Here no man must get the means of 



313 Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 

hiring a substitute from any insurance, or club. He must make 
no bargain with his master to work out the amount of the penalty. 
He must swear that the ten pounds comes out of his own present 
means, or he must serve in person. In this case, however, we 
approach a little nearer, to Mr. Monroe's excellent scheme ; for 
in this militia, we proportion the property of him who refuses to 
serve ; though a rich farmer still pays only about twenty pounds, 
while the poorest of his labourers must pay ten pounds, though, 
certainly, the property of the former may be estimated at two or 
three thousand times greater than the property of the latter. 
Now, accordiug to Mr. Monroe's scheme, a couple of farmers 
would find themselves classed with twenty-three labourers and 
journeymen blacksmiths, collar-makers, wheelwrights, &c. &c 
And, of course, the two farmers would pay 24-25ths of the 
penalty ; or, which would be the natural result, one man, out of 
the twenty -five, with a handsome reward from the rest, would 
cheerfully take up the musket instead of the dung-fork, or the 
eledge-hammer. 

But the most important distinction still remains to be noticed ; 
that is to say, that we have, for twenty years, had a militia oh 
foot, under martial law, under officers commissioned by the king, 
under the regular discipline, lodged in camps or barracks, 
marched io every corner of the kingdom, without any actual inva- 
cion of the country. These regiments have been kept up, the 
balloting has been going on, and no invaders have come to burn 
our villages, towns, and cities ; or to plunder them, or lay them 
ander contribution : While, in America, we are invading and 
laying waste ; we are taking permanent possession of one district; 
we are compelling the people to swear allegiance to our king; we 
have a mighty naval force continually menacing the seacoast ; we 
have one army afloat here, another there, more are out, and this 
Mr. W, alter h calling till he is hoarse for more troops to be sent 
to devastate and divide the country, to overturn the republican 
government, and reduce the people to unconditional submission ; 
all this he is doing, while he is, at the same time, crying out 
against the "barbarous" scheme of calling upon the people of v 
property to defend their country, either in their persons, or with 
their purses. Ay, my lord ! fool as Mr. Walter is, he perceives 
that Mr. Monroe's is an infallible scheme for raising an army in a_ 
short time, and for keeping that army complete. He, fool as he 
is, smells powder in every line of this scheme* But it is his 
business to misrepresent, to disfigure, to induce his well-dressed 
rabble of readers, and you, too, if possible, to believe, that the 
scheme will fall ; and that, therefore, we ought to carry on the 
war with all imaginable energy. I trust, however, that you are 
not to be misled by him, or by an_y body else. I trust that yop 
wiU. see the danger which this wise and equitable plan presents to 



\ 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 319 

tis* I trust that you will at once abandon all hopes of extorting 
any concession from a country which has now shown, that diffi- 
culties and dangers, as they press upon her, only tend to increase 
her energy, to raise her spirit, and make her more formidable. 
I have respect enough for the understanding of your lordship to 
believe, that you have read Mr. Monroe's letter to the chairman 
of the military committee with great attention, and not without 
gome degree of alarm. But the conclusion of it is so very im- 
portant, that I cannot refrain from again calling your attention 
to it 

" I should," says he, " insult the understanding, and wound 
the feelings of the committee, if I touched on the calamities inci- 
dent to defeat. Dangers which t are remote, and can never be 
realized, excite no alarm with a gallant and generous people. But 
the advantages of success have a fair claim to their deliberate 
consideration. The effort we have already made has attracted 
the attention and extorted the praise of other nations. Already 
nave most of the absurd theories and idle speculations on our 
system of government, been refuted and put down. We are now 
felt and respected as a power ; and it is the dread which the enemy 
entertain of our resources and growing importance, that has in- 
duced him to press the war against us after its professed objects 
had ceased. Success, by discomfiture of his schemes, and the at- 
tainment of an honourable peace, will place the United States on 
higher grounds, in the opinion of the world, than they have held 
at any former period. In future wars, their commerce will be 
permitted to take its lawful range unmolested. Their remon- 
strances to foreign governments will not again be put aside, un- 
heeded. Few will be presented, because there will seldom be 
occasion for them. Our union, founded on internal affection, will 
have acquired new strength by the proof it will have afforded of 
the important advantages attending it. Respected abroad, and 
happy at home, the United States will have accomplished the 
great objects for which they have so long contended. A9 a na- 
tion, they will have little to dread, as a people, little to desire.' 7 

I beseech your lordship's serious attention to these important. 
words. I allow, that peace now made on the basis of the Status 
Quo would be success to America. I have often said this before. 
To defend herself against us, single handed, will be most glori- 
ous triumph to her, and will elevate her in the eyes of all the 
world. But, then, ray lord, to repeat once more what I have so 
often said, what will be the consequence of her success at the end 
of a ten years', or a five years* war? How much greater would 
then be her triumph? How much greater her weight in the world ■ 
How much more proud her defiance of us ? How much more 
powerful her navy ? How much more exasperated her people 
against us? 



"O 



320 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

I confess, that, after all that has been said here about Mr. Ma- 
dison ; after all the threats of our press to depose him ; after all the 
" liars, traitors, hypocrites" &c. that the press has called him ; 
after all the expectations of seeing a viceroy sent out to Washing- 
ton city, it would siuk the heart of John Bull down into his shoes 
to see a peace made with this same Mr. Madison, without extort- 
ing something from him. But you and your colleagues ought to 
despise this national folly, created by the venal men, who live by 
misrepresentation and falsehood ; whose tables are furnished with 
the fruits of flattering popular prejudices. 

I confess, too, that the friends of Captain Henry ; that the 
would-be noblesse of Massachusetts ; that the federalists in ge- 
neral, would be put down forever by a peace with Mr. Madison, 
on terms honourable to America, made at this time ; and which 
peace would clearly have been obtained by the wisdom of hia 
measures, and the bravery of those whom he has employed. But 
hang these scurvy noblesse, my lord ! They are poor creatures. 
They cannot assist us. The population of America is essentially 
republican, from one end to the other. These poor things have 
tried their utmost ; and they have failed. As long • as they are 
stimulated with the hope of forcing open the offices of government 
by the misfortunes of their country, they will talk big about a se« 
paralion of the union ; but the moment that that hope dies with- 
in them, you will see them as quiet as mice. And really, I do 
not know of any thing more likely to kill that hope than the scheme 
of Mr. Monroe, which will not only bring forth an efficient army 
now, but which will hold an efficient army always in readiness 
at a week's notice, while, at the same time, it will obviate the ne- 
cessity of a standing army and of a great permanent expense, 
and will prevent the executive government from acquiring a pa- 
tronage inconsistent with the principles of republican government, 
and da'ngerous to political and civil liberty. 

I confess, moreover, that there is another class of men, whom 
you would mortally offend by making a peace that should be ho- 
nourable to x^merica : I mean, the haters of freedom. I do not 

mean This moment 

has arrived the Courier newspaper with news of the PEACE. 
I do not not know how to express the pleasure I feel at this news, 
or the gratitude, which, for this act, i, in common with my coun- 
trymen, owe to your lordship and your colleagues. Far be it from 
me to rejoice at what the Times calls the disgrace of the navy 
of England, and the humiliation of the crown ; but being fully 
convinced, the longer the war had continued the more disgrace- 
ful and dangerous would have been the result, I do most sincerely 
rejoice at this auspicious event, and certainly not the less on ac- 
count of its being calculated to baffle the views of that bypocriti- 



Letlers of William Cobbett, Esq. 321 

cal faction, who have still the impudence to call themselves 
jvhigs. 

I am, &c. &c. 

William Cobbett. 

Eotlcy, 28th December, 1814, 



AMERICA. 

Mr. Hunt's motion, and Sir John Cox Hippisley's speech, re* 
specting her. — The Courier's attack on Mr. Binns, a jtublisher 
at Philadelphia. 

At a meeting of the county of Somerset, on the 9th inst. a 
curious occurrence took place with regard to the peace with Ame- 
rica. I will first give the account of it from the Times newspa- 
per of the 16th inst. and make on it such observations as most 
naturally present themselves. The reader should first be inform- 
ed, however, that the meeting was held for the purpose of discuss- 
ing a petition to parliament against the property tax, or tax upoyi 
income, which tax ought, by law, to expire in a few months, butof 
which tax, it is supposed, the government means to propose the 
continuation or revival. The following is the report of the 
Times : 

" Ob Monday last, at the meeting of the freeholders, &c. 
liolden at Wells, to petition parliament for the repeal of the pro- 
perty tax, after the business of the day was disposed of, (an ac- 
count of which has already appeared in this paper,) Mr. Hunt 
remarked, that the meeting should not disperse without expressing 
its thankfulness to those by whose efforts peace had been made 
between us and America. He therefore read a resolution, which 
he submitted for their approbation : ' That the thanks of this 
meeting are due to those by whose exertions peace with the Ame- 
ricans, the only remaining free people in the world, has been re- 
stored to this country.' Sir J. C. Hippisley could see no rea- 
son whatever for calling the Americans the only free people in the 
world, and should certainly divide the meeting if the motion was 
persisted in. It was a libel on our own country ; for his part, 
he HATED THE AMERICANS. They were a set of slaves 
to the government of France, and — (some expressions of disap- 
probation arose ;) when Mr. Dickenson said, that he certainly 
must join in deprecating the resolution. He hoped the meeting 
would not consent to compliment any nation at the expense of our 
own, and of every other on the globe. He had considerable rea- 
son for believing that the congress at Vienna was now employed 

41 



322 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

in endeavouring to unrivet the chains of the suffering Africans ; and, 
engaged as the powers of Europe were, in so sacred a cause, he 
could not consent that any aspersion, direct or indirect, should be 
cast upon them. Mr. Hunt then requested the sheriff to put the 
lesolution, which, upon the show of hands, was negatived by a 
very considerable majority." 

Whether there be any free country in the world still remaining, 
besides the republic of America, is a question that I do not choose 
to decide, or to give my opinion upon. But 1 cannot help observ- 
ing, that the question was decided in the negative by a meeting 
of the county of Somerset only by a " considerable majority ;" 
and, I must further observe, that the report of this " considera- 
ble majority" comes to us through the Times newspaper, that 
channel of skunk-like abuse of America, and all that is American. 
Let it be remembered, too, that the power of deciding who had 
the majority lay wholly and absolutely with the sheriff, who is 
an officer appointed by the crown. This being the case, the 
words, " considerable majority," will be pretty well understood 
to mean any thing but a large majority ; and, perhaps, some 
people may doubt whether there was any majority at all. At any 
rate, the county of Somerset divided upon the question of whether 
America was, or was not, the only free country left in the world* 
This was, at least, a question for which many were in the affirma- 
tive. It was received and put to vote without any marks of dis- 
approbation ; while, on the other hand, he was hissed who said 
that he hated the Americans, and who called them the slaves of 
the French government. And why, good Sir John, do you hate 
the Americans 1 What have they done to you ? You say that 
they are the slaves of the government of France ; but you do 
not find it convenient to produce any proof of what you say. 
This, Sir John, is one of the old stale falsehoods of the Times 
newspaper, which you are retailing at secondhand, like a Grub- 
street pedler- You are, in this instance, a poor crawling imitator 
of a wretched grinder of paid-for paragraphs. Prove, or attempt 
to prove, what you say. Attempt, at least, to prove, that the 
Americans are the slaves, or have been the slaves of the French, 
or you must be content to go about saddled with the charge of 
having made an assertion, without being either able or willing to 
show it to be true. I assert, that the Americans were not, in any 
shape or degree, subservient to France. I assert, that they all 
along acted the part of a nation truly independent. I assert, that 
they, in no case, showed a partiality for the government of Na- 
poleon. If any proof were wanted of their having placed no re- 
liance upon France, we have it in the fact, the fact so honourable, 
so glorious to them, and so unfortunate for us ; I mean the fact of 
their continuing the contest after Napoleon was put down, and still, 
as firmly as before, refusing to give up to us one single point t 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 323 

tiiougli they saw us allied with all Europe, and though they saw 
(he whole of our monstrous force directed against them, having no 
other enemy to contend with. This proves that they placed no 
reliance upon France. When they declared war, they saw us 
with a powerful enemy in Europe. Upon that circumstance they, 
of course, calculated, as they had a right to do ; but when that 
enemy, contrary to their expectation) was put down all of a sudden, 
and the whole of our enormous force was bent against America, 
she was not intimidated. She still set us at defiance ; she faced 
us; she fought us; and, at the end of a few months, instead of 
receiving a viceroy at Washington, as we had been told she would, 
she brought us to make peace with her without her giving up to 
us one single point of any sort. Deny this, if you can, Sir John, 
and, if you cannot, answer to the people of Somerset for the 
speech which the Times has published as yours. But, Sic 
.lohn, why do you HATE the Americans? You cannot, surely, 
hate them because they pay their President only about six thou- 
sand pounds a year, not half so much as our Apothecary Gene* 
ral receives. You, surely, cannot hate them because they do 
not pay in the gross amount of their taxes as much as we pay for 
the mere collection and management of ours. You, surely, can- 
not hate them because they keep no sinecure placemen, and no 
pensioners, except such as have actually rendered them servi-. 
ces, and to them grant pensions only by vote of their real repre* 
sentatives. You, surely, cannot hate them because, in their coun- 
try, the press is really free, and truth cannot be a libel. You, 
surely, cannot hate them because they have shown that a cheap 
government is, in fact, the strongest of all governments, standing 
in no need of troops or of treason laws to defend it, in times even 
of actual invasion. You may, indeed, pity them, because they 
are destitute of the honour of being governed by some illustrious 
family; because they are destitute of Dukes, Royal and others, of 
Most Noble Marquises, of Earls, Viscounts, and Barons; because- 
they are destitute of Knights of the Garter, Thistle and Bath, Grand 
Crosses, Commanders and Companions ; because they are, in spite 
of the efforts of the Massachusetts intriguers, still destitute of Il- 
lustrious Highnesses, Right Honourables, Honourables, and Es- 
quires ; because they are destitute of long robes and big wigs, 
and see their lawyers, of all ranks, in plain coats of gray, brown, 
or blue, as chance may determine ; because they are destitute of 
a church established by law, and of tythes you; may, indeed, 
pity the republicans on these accounts; buf, Sir John, it would 
be cruel to hate them. To hate is not the act of a christian, and 
very illy becomes a man like yourself, who has been a hero, a per- 
fect dragon, in combating the anti-christian principles of the French 
Revolution. Pity the Americans, Sir John. Forgive them, Sir 
John. Pray for them, Sir John. But do not hate them, thou hie 



324> Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 

and fortune defender of our holy religion. Pray that they may 
speedily have a King and Royal Family, with a Commander in 
Chief and Field Marshals •, that they may have a Civil List and 
Sinecures ; that they may have Lords, Dukes, Grand Crosses, 
Clergy, Regular Army, and Tythes ; pray for these things, in 
their behalf, as long as you please ; pray that the Americans may 
have as good a government as we have ; but, because they have • 
it not, do not hate them. I was really very happy to perceive 
that you were hissed for this sentiment at the county meeting. 
I was happy to perceive it, because it was a sign, that the people 
of England were coming (o their senses upon this, the most import- 
ant of all subjects. Why could you not have expressed your- 
self in terms less hostile to every generous and humane feeling? 
I confess that Mr. Hunt's motion, though, if he thought it lrue y 
he was right in making it, might fairly be objected to by any one 
who thought differently. But you might have reprobated the 
endeavour to describe England as not free, (if you regarded her 
as being free,) without saying that you hated the Americans, 
This it was that shocked the meeting ; and, accordingly, it hooted 
you, as appears from the report, as published even by the Times 
newspaper. Every effort ought now to be made to produce re- 
conciliation with America ; and you appear to have done all that 
you were able to do to perpetuate the animosities engendered by 
the war. Mr. Dickenson managed his opposition to the motion 
more adroitly. He observed, that the holy war powers, now in 
congress at Vienna, were, " he had considerable reason to be- 
Jieve,'' engaged in an effort to unrivet the chains of the African 
slave ; and, therefore, he could not consent to any motion that; 
might seem to glance against their people being free. So Mr. 
Dickknson concluded, it seems, that, if the " sacred cause r ' 
powers should settle upon some general prohibition against the 
increase of slaves in the West-Indies, there cannot possibly re- 
main any thing like slavery in Russia, Prussia, Poland, Germany, 
Bohemia, Transylvania, Sclavonia, Italy, Spain, or Portugal. 

I should like to have heard the chain of argument, through 
which this member for Somerset arrived at such a conclusion 
from such premises. I suppose that it must have been something 
in this way : That the " sacred cause" powers are all perfectly 
sincere in their professions ; that, being so, it is impossible to be- 
lieve, that they would show so much anxiety for the freeing of 
the Africans, while they held their own subjects in slavery ; and 
that, therefore, it is impossible to believe, that the people of Rus- 
sia, Germany, and Hungary, are not all perfectly free. I dare 
say that Mr. Dickenson said a great deal more upon the subject, 
and produced/aefs as well as arguments to prove that Mr. Hunt's 
motion was an unjust attack upon those powers ; and I confess 
£kit it weuld be a great treat to me to see those facts upon paper. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 325 



AMERICA AND ALGIERS. 

As the war which has now begun between the " democratic 
rulers" of America, and the " regular government" of Al- 
giers, may lead to important consequences, it is proper to insert 
here the grounds of this war, as far as we can come at them, 
We have the American official accounts only. America has a 
tell-tale sort of government. It has no state secrets. It blabs 
out the proceedings in negotiations, while the negotiators are 
still assembled. Not so the regular government of Algiers, 
which is one of the " ancient and venerable institutions" which 
the Bostonian noblesse so much admire ; one of the " gems in 
the crown of ancient glory," of which Mr. Chateaubriand speaks 
so feelingly, and so foolishly ; one of the links in the chain of 
the " social system" which has recently been under the ham- 
mers of so many able artisans at Vienna. The regular govern- 
ment of Algiers does not make any prefaces to war. It observes 
a dignified silence till it has actually begun and made some pro- 
gress in the war ! till it has made a good haul of the enemy's 
ships, before he knows that he is looked upon as an enemy. 
This is the practice of the regular government ; the " ancient 
and venerable institution in Algiers." I shall now insert, first, 
an account of the grounds of war from the National Intelligen- 
cer, published at Washington ; next, the report of congress on 
the subject ; and, last, the act of congress declaring war against 
Algiers. For the reader will observe, that, in the irregular go- 
vernment of America, war cannot be declared by the chief ma- 
gistrate, without the consent of the people's real representatives. 
I reserve a few remarks to follow the documents. 

There is one circumstance connected with this Algerine war, 
which I think worthy of particular notice ; and that is, this regu- 
lar government began, it appears, its depredations on the Ame- 
ricans, just as the latter were entering upon war with US ! Some 
of our modest and honourable gentlemen ; some of our most 
! honourable men, have called America an assassin, because she 
I made war against us while we were at war against Napoleon. 
I What will they say now of the venerable head of this African 
state 1 The same honourable worthies have said, that because 
America went to war with us while we had to fight Napoleon, 
she was the slave of Napoleon. But I hope they will not apply 
this reasoniug to the present war between America and Algiers ; 
I fervently hope, that no one will pretend, that, because Algiers 
went to war with America, while America had to fight with us, 
Algiers w»3 the slave of England ! As to the result of th<3 war, I 



326 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

have no doubt that the dey will not have to rejoice much at the 
success of his undertaking. A dry blow, instead of millions 
of dollars, are likely to be his portion. As an Englishman, I 
must wish that the Algerines may be beaten by those who 
have, unfortunately, so often beaten my own countrymen. 

The Times newspaper has told us, that it is suspected that 
the Algerine war is, with America, a PRETEXT for increasing 
her navy. Indeed, doctor ! and in what civilian have you dis- 
covered that America is restrained from augmenting her navy at 
her pleasure ? What need has she of pretexts ? I know, indeed, 
that, amongst your other follies, you did, during last summer, in- 
sist upon it, that, in making peace with America, she should, at 
least, be compelled to stipulate not to have any ships of war be' 
yond a certain number. But the stipulation was not obtained ; 
and, now, instead of big menaces, you throw out your suspectings 
for the cogitations of the wise John Bull. Away, driveller! and 
await a similar fate to your predictions as to the taking of New- 
Orleans. 



LITERARY FUND AND WASHINGTON BENEVOLENT SOCIETY 

I have observed that, year after year, this institution becomes 
more like a common charity concern. A parcel of lords, and 
other men of purse, take the chair, and take the lead. This last 
meeting was, I see, presided over by the duke of Kent, in the 
same way as the Lancaster school meetings, and other meetings 
for the assistance of the poor and miserable. The consequence 
of this must be, that the poor devil's politics will serve as the 
measure of the bounty he is to receive. The original design of 
this fund must be totally overlooked. The design, I believe, was, 
to prevent authors from selling their pens ; whereas, now, I 
should suppose the principal design to be to purchase the pens of 
uuthors, or to keep alive poor slaves whose works are well meant 
towards their patrons, but destitute of the talent necessary to 
make them sell. I observed, that the "founder's" health was 
drank, and that the "founder" Mr. David Williams, was not 
named.* 

Mr. David Williams wrote some excellent political tracts in 
support of the principles of freedom ; he also translated some of 
the works of Voltaire on the subject of religion ; never did he 
expect that this institution would tumble into such hands as have 
now got hold of it. The truth is, that the scheme was a very 

• He was the nuthor of Lessons to a Young Prince >, which have been erroneous?/ 
attributed to Edmund Burke. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 327 

good one. Its object and its tendency was to encourage literary 
merit, and to make authors honest and independent ; but it has 
now manifestly been converted into a sort of poor-list for decayed 
literary hacks. They tell the world that they do not publish the 
names of the parties who receive charity. They are very wise 
in this, for the public would soon see what the real object of the 
fund was, if they could see the names of the persons relieved. 
In short, this, like almost every other " charity," as they are 
called, is neither more nor less than an adjunct of the govern- 
ment, or, rather, of the system. What jacobin, or jacobin's wife, 
(unless she first betrayed her husband,) was ever relieved by any 
of these societies ? They are kept up for the purpose of keeping 
the needy in good humour, or of rewarding faithful, decayed 
slaves. Here the man who has paid a fortune in taxes often 
comes, cap in hand, and receives back the means of getting a 
dinner. 

It is curious to observe, that the aristocratic faction in Ame- 
rica have resorted to a trick of this sort. They set up, some 
few years ago, a society, which they called the "Washington 
Benevolent Society." which, it appears, has branched out 
all over the country. The object of this trick was to collect little 
groupes of the most needy and mean-spirited part of the people, 
and, by the means of donations in money, clothes, books, and me- 
^dicalaid, to attach them to the aspiring rich, and thus to found a 
sort of affiliation against the republican government. 

The name of Washington was taken for the purpose of de- 
ception, and, as a party word, opposed to the name of Franklin, 
Jefferson, or Madison, who were thus to be held up as having 
deviated from the principles of the man to whom American grati- 
tude has given what, perhaps, American wisdom and justice would 
have given largely, but certainly with a less prodigal hand. 

Availing themselves of this amiable weakness, these crafty 
enemies of their country's freedom have been working up the peo- 
ple here and there, by the means of these societies, to an opposi- 
tion to the government. They hold their stated meetings as our 
" charities" do. They make speeches, compliment one another, 
extol the virtues of Washington, who, though one of the first of 
patriots, never was fool enough to bestow his money in the making 
of paupers. Shut out of the legislative assemblies by the people's 
voice, they harangue at these meetings, and thus continue to 
keep themselves in wind. Silly as the thing is, however, in itself, 
I would have the Americans be upon their guard against it. If, is 
aspiring aristocracy in its most alluring guise ; it is imposture of 
the most dangerous kind. It tends to the creating of pauperism; 
to the forming of a class in the community who have no interest 
in supporting the rights and liberties of the nation, and who are 
to be bought and sold like cattle. These societies ought to be 






328 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

resolutely attacked and exposed. A little matter would break 
them up amongst a sensible people. I wish I could show the 
people of America the effects of pauperism in England ; 1 wish I 
could make them see the degradation which it has brought upon 
the land of their forefathers — there would need nothing more. 

fCoBBETT is very much deceived, if he supposes that this society is either re 
spected or respectable; if he had seen it march, on the 4th instant, with all the 
advantages which a festive day could give it, when every hand was suspended from 
labour, and when those who abhorred independence, and sickened at the celebra- 
tion, were compelled, by the force of public sentiment, to appear pleased, while 
their hearts grieved ; had he seen the Peter Washingtons on that day, where every 
notorious tory and the underlings of English agency looked for the only solace they 
could find in the congenial feeling of hatred to" free and equal government, in that 
■wretched club— Cobbett would have seen many of his oivn abettors, a few of those 
-vho wrote for his Porcupine, some who, during the war, gave, as public toasts, the 
"transportation of Madison to Elba;" a number of poor boys in their Sunday 
coats ; a few decent looking men, among whom the wreck of the world had made 
havock, and whose poverty, and not their will, placed them there, as the only mode 
hy which certain kinds of business dependent an English agency can be obtained. 
This society is perfectly harmless, in a social and a political light ; for, very fortu- 
nately, it is in hands which always have been distinguished more for blind zeal than 
judgment, and whose folly renders it odious, even amoDg the most respectable and 
sedate of the federalists, who are repressed by decorum from participating in t 
scheme which was set out upon a suggestion of the English minister, Jackson, com- 
menced at the same point as the Hartford convention, and had in view the same 
object ; which in its by-laws betrayed the cloven foot of England, by pursuing the 
same system as Liston procured to be set on foot in 1797 — 8, and which Cobbett 
himself encouraged — the determination not to employ in any business, nor to deal 
in any transactions, nor to countenance in public or private, any citizen who did 
not recognise the Washington Benevolent Society — the mode by which England has 
dirided, and distracted, and ruined many nations.} Aurora. 



To'the Earl of Liverpool — on the part which America is likely 
to take in a war between England and France. 

My Lord, 

From several parts of America I have received thanks 
for my letters to your lordship on the subject of the American 
war. The people in America think, or, at least, many of them 
think, that those letters had great weight in producing the peace 
of Ghent, than which you and your colleagues never adopted any 
measure more wise, nor in better time. Yet, you have never 
thanked me for my advice. You, to whom the peace was much 
more necessary than to Mr. Madison, have never acknowledged 
your obligations to me—you have appeared to be sulky about all, 
though I taught you so exactly what to do, in order to avoid th( f 
great evils which were coming upon you from all quarters. Th(| 
consequences of the American war were foretold by me nearly 
two years before the war began. I told you that you would have 
war, if you persevered in seizing men on board of American 
ships on the high seas. You did persevere, and you had war. 
I told you that the Americans would beat yon in fighting, if you 
continued the war for two years. You continued the war. and 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 329 

■ uey did beat you. I told you that you would never have peace 
if you demanded any concession from America. You insisted on 
great concessions on her part as a sine qua non of peace ; and, 
after three months more, you made peace by giving up every 
thing, not excepting the sine qua non itself. In short, you ex- 
pended fifty millions of money, and lost, I dare say, thirty thou- 
sand men, in accomplishing nothing, except creating a navy in 
America, causing her manufactures to flourish, and implanting 
in the hearts of Americans, for ages, a hatred of the English 
government. 

I remind you of these things, in order to bespeak your atten- 
tion on the present subject. 1 shall her-e deal in prophecies again • 
and shall not be at all afraid of proving, in the end, not to have 
been a false prophet. You appear to me now to be in a very fair 
way of adding another six hundred millions to our debt, and of 
bringing the guinea up to forty shillings, instead of twenty-eight 
shillings, at which point it is now arrived. I wish to prevent 
this ; and if I do not succeed, I shall, at any rate, have these 
pi'.ges to refer to, when the mischief has taken place, and when 
few beside myself will be able to say that they did ail in their 
power to prevent it. 

I am of opinion, that France alone is now, as she was in 1793, 
more than a match for the coalition against her. But I am fur- 
ther of opinion, thai, before the war against her he six months old, 
you will find America taking apart in it, unless you absolutely 
abstain from every thing that can be construed into a violation of 
neutral maritime rights. 

War, or peace, with America, will depend upon the opinions 
of the people in that country. The people there are really and 
truly represented in the congress. There are no vile sham 
elections in the United States. That which (he people wills, 
will be done. The Americans are a sensible people ; they all 
read from a press which is really free; they discuss all poli- 
tical matters freely ; they love peace ; they would prefer 
peace ; they would make some sacrifices to peace ; but they 
will never hesitate a moment in preferring war to slavery or de- 
pendence. 

Now, then, what is likely to be the view which the Americans 
will take of the present scene in Europe ? And what are likely 
to be their feelings with regard to what is passing in this quarter 
of the world ? If is very easy for our corrupt press to persuade 
the alarmed and selfish part of England, that it is necessary to 
plunge the country into war, in order to root out the present 
government of Fiance. But it will not be so easy for any body 
to persuade the American people that such an undertaking is just. 
They will see the matter in its true light ; they will see that 
Napoleon has been replaced at the head of the government, b} 

42 






330 Ldlers of William Cobbcll, Esq. 

the will of (he people of France ; they will see that he has ha^ 
the wisdom and virtue to abandon his ambitions projects ; they 
will see that he has voluntarily confined himself within the ancient^ 
limits of France ; they will see that he has tendered the olive 
branch to all surrounding nations; tbey will see (hat he means to 
contend solely for the independence of Fiance ; they will see 
that he has returned, as nearly as circumstances will permit, to 
the principles of 1 789 ; they will see that he has provided for 
the people being really represented in the legislature ; they will 
see that there is to be no religious persecution, and no predomi- 
nant church in France ; they will see that the French people 
have derived great benefits from the revolution, and that now 
all these benefits are to be confirmed to them ; in France they 
will see a free people, and in Napoleon, they will see the soldier 
of freedom. 

On the other hand, they will ask, what right England, or 
any other power, can have to interfere in the internal afiairs of 
France? They will ask, why England should not treat with him 
now, as well as at Amiens ; why not treat with him as well as 
with the directory at Lille ? They will ask, why England should 
refuse to treat with him, from whom she received the islands of 
Ceylon and Trinidad ? They will ask, what can be the real ob- 
ject, the ultimate object, of a coalition of those powers w ho 
were assembled at Vienna, and who were disposing of states at 
their pleasure ? 

The Americans have seen the republic of Genoa given to the 
king of Sardinia; they have seen Poland parcelled out between 
Prussia, Russia, and Austria; they have seen the fleet of Den- 
mark taken away ; they have seen the people of the republic of 
Holland sunk into the subjects of a king ; they have seen the 
republic of Venice transferred to the emperor of Austria ; they 
have seen the pope replaced with the Jesuits at his heels ; they 
have seen, that in Spain, where a free constitution had been 
formed by men who had been fighting on our side, the king has 
been brought back; ttat he has destroyed this constitution ; that 
he has treated the makers of it as traitors ; that he has re-estab- 
lished the inquisition which Napoleon had abolished ; that when 
two of the alleged traitors took shelter in Gibraltar, they were 
given up to their hunters, and that when complaint of this wa3 
made in our parliament, the reply was, that " we had no right 
to interfere in the domestic affairs of Spain." The Americaus 
will ask, why this principle is not applied to the domestic affairs 
of France ? They will ask, not for vile, foul-mouthed abuse of 
Napoleon and the French people ; but for some proof of our 
right to interfere against him. 

Having seen all these things ; having seen what we and our 
allies have been at in every part of Europe ; having seen that tlu 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 331 

people of France is the only people in Europe living under a go- 
vernment approaching towards a resemblance to their own ; they 
will want very little to assist them in forming a correct opinion as 
to the real object of the war against France, if such war should 
now, without provocation on the part of France, be resolved on. 

It appears to me, therefore, that the American people will, at 
least, feel great interest in this war, much greater than they felt 
in the last war ; and that as they have just laid down their arms, 
after a contest in defence of their maritime rights, they will, the 
moment they hear of this war, prepare again for that defence. 
America, in all likelihood, will again be the only neutral nation. 
There will be no Berlin and Milan decrees to give a pretence 
for Orders in Council. So that, if we trench upon her rights, 
her ground of war will be cleared of all confusion. She will stand 
upon her indisputable rights ; and, if she be left in the full and 
free enjoyment of her advantages as a neutral power, she will 
carry on three-fourths of the commerce of the world. Our cruisers 
may keep at sea, but it will be only to witness the increase of 
her mercantile marine, and all the proofs of her wonderful pros- 
perity. France will receive all that she wants from foreign coun- 
tries by American ships. America will supply her with colonial 
produce, and with certain articles of manufacture. The latter 
rwill, through the same channel, find an oullet for much of her 
abundant produce. These two countries will become much more 
closely connected than ever, and we should come out of the war 
shorn of Our means, while the means, of all sorts, of America, would 
be found to be prodigiously increased. 

But, my lord, is it quite certain that the people of America 
would not feel strongly disposed to take part in this war against 
us ? They see that France is the only country left with a govern- 
ment resembling their own. Great as is their distance from Eu- 
rope, they have felt that, when left to be dealt with single-handed, 
their very existence, as an independent nation, was put in jeopardy. 
There were many persons in America who loudly blamed the pre* 
sident, Washington, for not taking part with the French, even when 
America had not a single public ship of war. They reasoned 
thus : That England was, from the nature of her force, as well as 
the situation of her dominions, the only enemy that America had 
to fear ; that she had never ceased to demonstrate a hostile mind 
towards America ; that she saw, in America, not only a success- 
ful example of democratic revolution, but a dangerous rival in 
commerce and maritime power ; that she only waited for & favour- 
able moment to use all her force to crush this rising rival ; and, 
therefore, it was less dangerous to declare, at once, for the repub- 
lic of France, and make common cause with her, than to wait the 
issue of the contest ; in which, if France should fall, Ameri*'* 






332 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

could not long survive, without, at least, another long and bloody 
war upon her own soil. 

This was the reasoning against neutrality, in 1793. How these 
reasoners must have triumphed, in 1814! when they saw all 
ground of dispute between England and America removed by the 
close of the war in Europe ; when they saw that, instead of this 
producing in England a disposition to make peace, it only produced 
redoubled activity in the war ; when they read, in the very same 
English newspaper that told them of the abdication of Napoleon, 
that NOW, NOW, NOW ! was the happy moment for crushing 
America; for putting an end to " the existence of the mischievous 
example of democratic rebellion'' exhibited in the American Union ; 
when they heard their president, and the majority of the congress, 
denominated, in these same papers, " rebels and traitors ;" when 
they saw, in the report of a speech of a lord of (he admiralty, that 
Mr. Madison was to be deposed, as Napoleon had been deposed ; 
when they saw the breaking up of the American Union represent- 
ed as absolutely necessary to the well-governing of other nations ; 
when they saw the fleet called upon officially by the lords of the 
admiralty to finish the American war, in such a way as would 
ensure the LASTING TRANQUILLITY OF THE CIVI- 
LIZED WORLD ; when they heard the English prints call 
upon the people of New England to separate themselves from the 
union ; when fhey heard it predicted, in these prints, that Mr. 
Madison would be put to death, and that the people would form 
a connexion with the PARENT *tate ; and when, upon the heels 
of all these predictions and threats, they saw an army actually 
sent off from France to fight against America; when they saw 
that identical army, which had been engaged against Napoleon, 
sent to invade America by the way of Lake Champlain; when 
they saw the war of fire and plunder carried on upon their sea- 
coast ; when those who were for war on the side of the French 
republic, in 1T93, saw all these things, in 1814, how they must 
have triumphed ! 

America must feel great confidence in herself from her past 
achievements. The skill and bravery of her seamen and land 
troops must give her great confidence. But there is no man who 
reflects, (and the Americans are a reflecting people,) who will not 
perceive that, with all her valour and all her virtue, America has 
had a very narrow escape ; and that, if all had been quite settled 
in Europe, she would have had to carry on a mwcl. longer and 
more bloody contest. It cannot but be evident to the American 
statesman, that if France were to be completely subdued ; if she 
were reduced to that state to be obliged to receive a ruler dictated 
by us and our allies ; if her hands and feet were thus lied for 
ages ; and if the situalion of all Europe were such as to leave the 
whole undivided power of England to be employed against Ame- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 333 

nca, the situation of the latter would be, at least, very unpleasant, 
not to say precarious. And if such a person considers what 
were the real objects of England in 1814, the manner in which 
the war terminated, and what an excellent memory she has, he 
must be a bold man indeed if he feel no apprehensions at the total 
subjugation of France. 

It has not been forgotten in America, that directly after the ab- 
dication of Napoleon, there appeared an article in our newspa- 
pers, stating, that there was a SECRET ARTICLE in the 
treaty of Paris, stipulating, thai none of the parties, Russia, 
Prussia, Austria, and France, should interfere in our war against 
America. This ne^s was given as copied from the Vienna Ga- 
zette. The Vienna Gazette is under the immediate control of the 
government there. The Americans paid great and deserved at- 
tention to this: and must they not have lamented to see France 
reduced to such a state ? Thev afterwards saw that there was no 
safety for (heir ships of war, or their prizes, in the ports of France. 
They saw, in short, that the Bourbons, holding their power al- 
most at the mercy of England, afforded not the smallest hope of 
any support against so formidable a power as England. Then it 
was that many Americans blamed P.lr. Madison, not for resisting 
the exercise of our alleged right of impressment ; but, on the 
contrary, for not having sooner made war against us in alliance 
with France. They told him that he was, at last, in a state to be 
able to appreciate the wisdom of keeping aloof from France, on 
account of the title of her ruler. They laughed at him for his 
scruples to make common cause with an emperor, while we saw 
England having allies in the Turk, the Pope, the Algerines, and 
the Indians; and they laughed at him the more, when (hey recol- 
lected that America had won her independence while in an al« 
liance, offensive and defensive, with a Bourbon king of France. 

However, many of the causes which kept America aloof from 
France are now removed. The principles of 1793 are again 
adopted in France ; the system of reforming, by means of con- 
quest, is abandoned; Napoleon will have learnt how to respect 
the rights and to value the character of America. Experience 
has taught the Americans what they have to expect under certain 
circumstances. The latter are in no danger from France ; they 
never can be in danger from France ; and Frenchtown and Alex- 
andria will remind them what danger they are in from England. 

It is said, by some persons in America, that though it might 
have been wise to seek permanent security, in 1793, by entering 
into the war on the side of the republic of France, it would not 
be wise now, seeing that America has become so much more able 
to defend herself than she was in 1793, a proof of which she has 
given in her recent war against the undivided force of England. 
0n the other hand it is contended, that, though America besr> 






Letters of H'UUani Cobbelt, Ect[, 



much more powerful than she was in 1793, England, loaded as* 
she is with debts and taxes, is more formidable than she would 
have been in 1793, even if she had then subdued France ; for 
though the people of England suffer, the government has more 
force at its command ; and, what is more for its advantage, the 
country is brought into that sort of state which makes war almost 
necessary. If her paupei-3 have increased three-fold, her armed 
men and her means of destruction have increased five-fold. She 
is become a nation of fighters. She possesses all the means of 
destroying. And, say these reasoners, it is not only subjugation 
against which America ought to guard ; it is her duty to guard her- 
self also against devastation and plunder. Besides, say they, 
England has now less powerful motives to the exercise of forbear- 
ance towards America. While the latter was without manufac- 
tures ; while England had almost a monopoly in the supplying of 
America ; the former saw in the prosperity of the latter the means 
of augmenting her own riches and power. But now the case is 
different ; England sees in America even a manufacturing rival ; 
and, what is still more provoking, she sees in America a rival in 
naval power and renown. Therefore, say they, she must and 
she will desire our destruction; whether she will attempt it again 
will depend upon her and our means of attack and resistance. 

It must be confessed that our infamous newspapers have given 
but too much reason to ihe Americans upon this head. For they 
have published lists of the American navy, and accounts of the 
American shipping and manufactures ; and, having dwelt upon 
their magnitude, and on their rapid increase, they have called 
upon your lordship and your colleagues to prosecute the war for 
the purpose of destroying these evidences of rising power and 
wealth. They have contended that it w as just to carry on war 
against America ; to destroy her navy ; to destroy her shipping 
and manufactures ; and to obtain, at least, a stipulation from her 
7iot to build ships of war beyond a certain number and a certain 
size. They have contended that such a war would be just ; that 
we should have a right to impose such conditions ; and that our 
safely demanded that we should. 

If I am told that these are the sayings of a set of foolish wri- 
ters in newspapers, ray answer is, that I have seldom seen any of 
these people promulgate any political opinion without its being, in 
the sequel, very clear to me, that it was not in their own foolish 
heads that the sentiment had been hatched. These men are, in 
fact, nothing of themselves ; they have no principles, no opinions ; 
they care nothing about the matter. They are the mere tools of 
those who speak through th^m, whom they not unfrequently de- 
spise, but from whom, and through the means of whom, they live 
comfortably, and sometimes get rich. 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 335 

Upon the whole, therefore, -my lord, it is not to be apprehend- 
ed, that, if we make war upon France for the avowed purpose of 
deposing Napoleon, the people of America will feel a strong dis- 
position to take part with France in that war. And, if they were 
so to do, have we not great cause to fear, that the war would be 
extremely injurious to us by sea as well as by land ? The Ameri- 
can privateers, though without a port to take shelter in on this side 
of the Atlantic, did great mischief to our commerce even in the 
channel. What, then, would they do if all the ports of France 
were open to them, and shut against us ? If, in short, America were 
in alliance with France, what English ship, unarmed, could hope to 
escape capture ? And, is it to be hoped, that, in such a case, the 
skill, the discipline, and undaunted bravery of the American navy 
would not be communicated to that of France ? Emulation might 
do a great deal towards sending forth fleets able, in a short time, 
to cope with those of England. Really, if we wish to keep these 
two nations asunder, it appears to me that we have no way of ac- 
complishing the wish but that of keeping at peace. 

If America were to join France in the war, we should, doubt- 
less, tell her, that she was acting a very base part"; that she had 
received from us no provocation ; that we had not meddled with 
her ; that we had expressed our anxious desire to live at peace 
with her. But, my lord, might she not answer ? — very true ; and 
you have received no provocation from France ; France has not 
meddled with you ; France has expressed her anxious desire to 
live at peace with you ; and yet you have gone to war against 
France : — if, therefore, it be base on my part to make war upon 
you, after you have begun war upon France, where is your justi- 
fication for having begun that war ? Besides, have you no ally? 
You boast of having all Europe on your side. And shall France 
have no ally? Shall you have twenty allies against the old ally of 
America ; and shall it be deemed base in America to become the 
only ally of France ? You say that yours is a war of precaution; 
so is mine. You fear that ISapoleon may, one day or other, get 
to London ; and you have been at Washington, at Frenchtown, 
and at Alexandria. 

It is a favourite saying, or it used to be, in America, that it 
was her true policy to keep aloof from European politics and 
nars. General Washington several times exoressed this senti- 
inent. But can she do it ? If Genera! Washington had seen tne 
congress house in flames, the other day, and had seen our people 
so busy in packing up goods at Alexandria, he would, I imagine, 
have begun to think, that it was not so easy a matter to keep alooi 
from European wars ; and if he had lived to be made acquainted 
with the famous Captain HENRY's exploits, I think he would 
have had his doubts as to the possibility of keeping aloof from 
European politics. Even we, in England, say, that America 



336 Letters of William t'obbelt, Esq. 

should keep at peace, though we ourselves are always at war in 
some part or other of the world ; though there is no war in which 
we have not a hand. The truth is, that America must take a 
part in the wars and politics of Europe. Here are poweis in Eu- 
rope who can reach her, who have colonies in her neighbourhood, 
who have an interest, or think they have an interest, in injuring 
her. They combine and co-operate with on* another ; and she 
must form alliances too ; or she cannot be many years an inde- 
pendent nation. 

It was impudently asserted, not long ago, that America had act- 
ed afoul part towards us, in the war ; and she was called an as- 
sassin, who had attacked us in the dark. I was pleased to hear, 
from such a quarter, a sentiment of abhorrence against assassins ; 
but I was displeased to hear such an act attributed to America ; 
because no charge was ever more false. It is notorious that Ame- 
rica used every effort, and made every sacrifice, short of a surren- 
der of her independence, to maintain peace with England; and 
that, so far from attacking us in the dark, she gave us notice, for 
years beforehand, that she would repel, by force, our seizure of 
her seamen, unless we ceased that practice. What, then, could 
be meant by this charge of assassin-like conduct ? Really, we 
seem to have taken into our heads, like the cock on the dunghill, 
that all the world was made for us! that no nation is to form an 
alliance, nor even to think of defending itself by its own arms, if 
we disapprove of it. When our interest, real or imaginary, is in 
question, the interest of no other nation is to be thought of. The 
question with America, according to this presumptuous whim, was 
to be, not whether she suffered injury ; but merely whether it 
was conducive to our interest to iaipress her sailors. If it was 
useful to us to do this, she was to deserve annihilation if she did 
not quietly submit to it, and to all its cruel and degrading conse- 
quences. 

We proceed upon the same notion with regard to alliances 
amongst foreign powers. What ! America make alliances with 
any power but us! Dreadful presumption! Presumption which 
merits all the weight of our vengeance ! What ! America- seek 
safety, when we think it best to keep her in continual danger!. 
America mate an alliance for the purpose of defending herself 
against us, whose public writers, at least, devoted her chief ma- 
gistrate to the gibbet, and herself, to a return under the mild pro- 
tection of ' c the PARENT state !" Nor are there wanting wri- 
ters in America to hold the same language j but they are met by 
men who are able to contend against them. There the press is 
free, really free ; and there truth will prevail. 

A good specimen of this insolent way of talking was given by 
Sir John Cox Hipj)esley, who, at a late county meeting in So- 
mersetshire, said, that the Americans, or, at least, their presi- 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 33? 

Jent, and the majority of the congress, were the slaves of the 
late tyrant of France, a proof of which they had given in their 
!ate war against us. So, because America, in defence of her- 
self, went to war with us, while we were at war against Napoleon, 
she was to be deemed the slave of Napoleon, who bad no power 
to hurt her, and who had never called on her to go to war in his 
behalf. She was to stop till our war with him was at an end? 
before she sought to defend herself. It was baseness in her to as- 
sert her own rights, at the end of many years of complaint, be- 
cause we were at war with Napoleon. 

This insolent language, my lord, is little calculated to heal the 
wounds of America. She will, in spite of all we can say, re- 
flect on her past danger, and she must have lost her usual wisdom 
in profiting from experience, if she does not now seek the means 
of security betimes. That, with all her natural reluctance to 
war, she will be disposed to do this, I am certain; and it will, 
I imagine, require but a slight provocation to induce her to act 
upon that disposition. It has been announced to us, that Swit- 
zerland has been informed that there are to be no neutrals in this 
war against Napoleon. Hamburgh, Tuscany, Genoa, and several 
other states, felt the effects of such a principle during the first 
war against republican France. Denmark felt those etfects dur- 
ing the last war. America will consider of, and judge from the 
past ; and your lordship may be assured, that she will not want 
the means of doing what her permanent safety shall manifestly 
I demand. 

I have thus, my lord, stated to you, what I think will be the 
view that-the people of America will take of the present scene ; 
what I think will be their feelings ; and I have pointed out the 
consequences which I apprehend from those feelings, if we enter 
upon the war against France on the ground which is at present set 
forth. The Americans, I repeat, are prone to peace, as every 
uncorrupted nation is ; but as it was said, the other evehihe, that 
it was better to go to war now, with a strong alliance on our side, 
than be compelled to go to war at the end of an exhausting armed 
peace, without allies; as this was deemed triumphant reasoning, 
in England, in behalf of offensive war, you must not be surprised 
if it be imitated, in America, in behalf of a war of t;eft-nce. 

I am, &c. &c 

William Cobbett. 

Botley, May C, 1815. 



i 



43 



338 Letters of William Cobbtlt, Esq, 



To the Earl of Liverpool — on the political effects produced in 
America by the peace of Ghent. 

My Lord, 

It was frequently observed by me, in former letters, 
which I had the honour to address to your lordship, during the 
war with America, that if you were, at last, as I foretold you 
would be, compelled to make peace without humbling America, 
and, indeed, without subduing her, or nearly subduing her, the 
result would be honourable to her, seeing that she would, in a war 
single-handed against England, have succeeded in defending her- 
self. It was clear, that when once the contest became a single 
combat, to defend herself must be to her triumph, and to us de- 
feat. And if she came out of the war without any, even the 
smallest concession, her triumph over us must raise her greatly 
in the estimation of her own people, and of all the world. She 
did come out of the war in this way ; and the natural conse- 
quences have followed. 

I do not know that I have before noticed the fact in print, but 
it is now time that I should ; I mean the curious fact relative to 
the proclamation of peace with America. We know that peace 
with any power is usually proclaimed by HERALDS, who, 
starting at St. James' Palace, go into the city, with a grand dis- 
play of armorial ensigns, accompanied by troops in gay at- 
tire, and by bands of martial music, stopping, from time to time", 
to read the king's proclamation of the peace. This was done at 
the peace of Amiens, and at the peace of Paris. Indeed, it is 
the usual way in which the cessation of war is proclaimed. 

Now, then, how was the peace with America proclaimed ? 
There was no procession at all ; there was nothing of the usual 
ceremony. But the Courier newspaper, and, I believe, that 
paper only, informed the public, that " peace with America was 
proclaimed today, by reading the Proclamation, in the USUAL 
WAY, at the door of the Office at Whitehall." This was all, 
and I will be bound, that even the people passing in the street 
did not know what it was that was reading. This is what the 
Courier calls the usual way of proclaiming peace ! There was 
no illuminations ; no firing of guns ; no ringing of bells ; no de- 
monstration of joy. In short, the country which had been so 
eager for the war, and so unanimous for its prosecution, seemed 
not at all to regret that it never knew the exact period when 
peace returned. It felt ashamed of the result of the war, and 
was glad to be told nothing at all about it. 

But, in America ! There the full force of public feeling was 
made manifest. The countrv resounded from New-Orleans to 



Letters of William Cohbett, Esq. 339 

tlie utmost borders of the lakes ; from the orange groves to the 
wheat lands buried four feet deep in snow, was heard the voice 
of joy, the boast of success, the shout of victory. I, who had 
always felt anxious for the freedom of America ; I, whose pre- 
dictions have been so completely fulfilled in the result of this 
contest ; even I, cannot keep down all feeling of mortification at 
these demonstrations of triumph, related in the American prints 
now before me. Even in me, the Englishman so far gets the bet- 
ter of all other feelings and consideration. What, then, must 
be the feelings of those, my lord, who urged on, and who prose- 
cuted that fatal war? 

An American paper now before me, the Boston " Yankee" 
of the 9th of December last, gives an account, copied from our 
London papers, of our Jubilee last summer, when " old Blu- 
chbr" was so squeezed and hugged, and had his jaws so nastily 
licked over by the filthy women, who were called " ladies." 
This Yankee calls it " John BulVs great national jubilee ;" 
and, I assure you, the famous victory gained by the naval force 
of England over the American fleet on the Serpentine River is 
not forgotten ! But the editor of the Yankee has made a mistake. 
He thought it was the Thames on which that memorable battle 
was fought. Not so, good Mr. Yankee. The Serpentine River, 
as it is called, is a little winding lake in Hyde Park, about the 
width of a large duck pond, and is fed by a little stream, or, 
rather, gutter, and empties itself by the means of another gutter 
at the other end. It was this quality of lake that made the scene 
so very apt. 

These are mortifying recollections, my lord ; and I do not know 
that they will be rendered less so to you by the addition of the 
reflection, that, if you had followed my advice, there never 
would have been any ground for them. 

The political effects in America of such a peace must be won- 
derful. Indeed, they evidently are so. The men who, in the 
New-England states, were forming open combinations against Mr. 
Madison, are, as I told you they would be, covered with that 
sort of disgrace, that deep disgrace, which defeated malice al- 
ways brings upon its head. They appear, from all I can gather, 
to have become the butt of ridicule, after having long been the 
object of serious censure. These men are suspected of treason' 
able views and acts. At any rate, they are chargeable with a 
real attempt to destroy the liberties of their country, in revenge 
for their rejection by the people. They were defeated in their 
grasp at the supreme powers of the union, and they have en- 
deavoured to do as the baboon is said to have done with the fair 
lady ; that is, destroy that which they could not possess. 

Mr. Pickering, to whom the Times newspaper looked up as 
the " hangman and successor of Mr. Madron." now talks Jike 



J 



340 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

a very hearty republican ; but the poor gentleman seems to know 
very little of what is going on here. He says, that you made 
peace because so many petitions were poured in against conti- 
nuing the war; and your lordship knows, that not one such peti- 
tion was poured in. He says, that the failure at New Orlean 
will put you out of place. Poor gentleman ! how little, how very 
little does he know about you! He says, that the opposition have 
clamoured for peace. It was the opposition who urged on the 
war, and only found fault with you for not doing the Yankees 
more mischief than you did. Yet this, this is one of them, to 
whom we have looked as capable of overthrowing Mr. Madison S 
This is one of the men who was to *' reunite the colonies to the 
parent state!" 

It is very true, I acknowledge, that a dangerous faction has 
arisen in the republic. I see very clearly, that wealth has intro- 
duced a taste for what are called honours. Vanity is making a 
desperate effort to decorate men with titles. The law forbids it ; 
but vanity is at open war with law. The germ of aristocracy, 
which was discovered in the New- England states, and, in a few 
instances, in some of the others, at the end of the war of inde- 
pendence, has grown out now to full view. There are squires 
and honourables in abundance. There are the " honourable the 
governor ;" " his honour the judge ;" and so on. These men 
will soon begin to regret that they have no one to give them per- 
manent titles ; that they have no "fountain of honwur." That 
which men regret the want of, they endeavour to obtain, when- 
ever an occasion offers. The priests of New England appear 
to be working hard to procure something in the way of an estab* 
fishment. Hence the joy of both these at the restoration of the 
Bourbons, the old French Noblesse, the Pope, and the Jesuits ; 
and, hence, they will, I venture to predict, be as abusive of Na- 
poleon, Carnot, Fouche, Redcerer, and Merlin, as is our Times 
newspapers. 

In the mean while, however, the people are sound republicans j 
and it will take some years to overset their government, though 
the manners and tastes of many may be corrupted. The follow- 
ing letters, which I have received from America, will show you 
that the war, and especially the peace, have produced a great 
change in that country. They will also show you, that, long 
ago, I had hit upon the true nail, and that you ought to have paid 
attention to me sooner th?.n you did. The newspapers from 
America breathe a spirit of resentment, which it should be our 
object to allay, if possible ; but, really, the language of our pros- 
tituted press was such, that, added to the " character of the 
war," it is almost impossible that reconciliation should take place 
during an age to come. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 341 

Before I conclude, I beg leave to call your lordship's attention 
to the statements in the American papers, relative to our treat- 
ment of the American prisoners of ivar ; also to call your atten- 
tion to certain intercepted letters of our officers, relative to plun- 
der ; and further, to call your attention to their charges relative 
to the parole given by Gen. Packenham, when he was about 
to assault, and to take, as he expected, New-Orleans. I dare 
not copy these. Newgate is not so pleasant as Botley. But still 
I do most anxiously wish to see these papers published here, be- 
cause they might then be met by denial and disproof, if not true. 
This is a serious matter, my lord, if we dare not publish here, 
they dare do it in America ; and there it is that the effect will be 
produced injurious to us. I dare say, that long before this will 
reach the press, all these charges, all these horrid narratives, 
will have been collected in America, published in a permanent 
shape, and, perhaps, translated into French. Thus will they 
be read by all the civilized world, the people ot England ex- 
cepted ; but, thus have I done my duty in pointing these things 
out to your lordship, which is all that I dare do in this case. 

I am, &c. &c. 



Botley, 29th May, 1815. 



William Cobbett, 



TO CORRESPONDENTS IN THE U. STATES OP AMERICA, 

I have, within these few days, had tendered to me, through the 
post, a small parcel from America, with " newspapers" written 
on it. This parcel had, as appears by the post mark, been sent 
from Liverpool to London, and from London to Botley. The 
charge on it was nine shillings and sixpence sterling ; that is to 
say, however, in our paper money, being about, at this time, a dol- 
lar and a half. I did not take the parcel, of course, much as I 
wished to see its contents. From this account, it will be per- 
ceived, that unless parcels of newspapers, coming from America, 
be actually conveyed by the bearer of them, either to me, at Bot- 
ley, (which can seldom happen,) or to London, the object in send- 
ing them must be defeated ; for a file of daily papers, for only 
one month, sent me by post from any out port, would cost, at 
least, the price of a good fat hog. I remember one parcel which 
came to me, charged with nine pounds some odd shillings of 
postage, which is now the price of a hog of seventeen score 
weight. As I am very desirous to receive, frequently, papers 
from America ; and as the papers in that country are not, as ours 
are, loaded with a tax equal to more than one half of the retail 
price, I will point out the maimer in which they may be sent, fn 



342 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 

me. The parcel should be addressed to me, by name, " to the 
care of the publisher of Cobbetfs Weekly Political Register, 
London." But it oughf, if the vessel go to London, to be carried 
by the master or mate, or by some careful person ; and if the ves- 
sel arrive at some out port, the parcel, with the same direction on 
it, should be carried to some office, whence a London coach de- 
parts. There it should be delivered, and the bearer should see 
it booked as we call it. By these means American papers wil! 
reach me with very little trouble, and at an expense of which I 
should think nothing. All single letters from America may be 
addressed to me at Botley, near Southampton, and be put, at 
once, into any post office in this country. The hirelings, who 
conduct nine tenths of the newspapers in London, have all possi- 
ble facilities in receiving American newspapers. But they pub- 
lish from them that only which suits their purpose. Their object 
is to mislead the people here ; or, to keep them in the dark ; and 
they cull out every passage calculated to answer the end. Be- 
sides, there are very few papers (the National Intelligencer ex- 
cepted) which are sent to England, except the papers called /e- 
deral. The persons who send these papers, if not English by 
birth, are English by connexion. Thus we see only one side of 
the picture; and hence it was, that malignant and beastly as is 
the editor of the Times newspaper, for instance, the fellow really 
might be deceived himself by the cuckoo clamour of the aris- 
tocratical American newspapers j but, hence, though I could get 
a sight of none but the same sort of papers, / was not deceived, 
because I had had that experience which enabled me to put a 
proper value upon what I saw in these papers. It is of great con- 
sequence to the cause of truth and freedom, that the republicart 
papers should come to us from America, and that other republican 
works should also reach us ; for it is from this island that opi- 
nions and facts go forth to produce impressions on the minds of the 
world. Bound up as our press is, we, by one means or other, 
contrive to get a great deal into circulation. We are nearer the 
grand scenes of action than you are ; and if you wish your prin- 
ciples and your example to have their due and speedy effect, we 
must be the principal vehicle of them. Some one at Philadelphia 
has recently sent me a parcel of American papers, received at 
Philadelphia from other places, from which I perceive, that my 
letters to Lord Liverpool have been republished in all parts of 
the republic, from Boston to Savannah, from Philadelphia to Pitts- 
burgh. Flattering as this is to my self love, it is much more gratify- 
ing to me as a proof of the powers of the press, and as the founda- 
tion of a rational hope, that the day is not distant when tyranny, 
wherever it may exist, will fall beneath those powers. Letter VI. 
to the earl of Liverpool, I wrote, I remember, in a room in a farm 
bouse, one morning when I was detained by rain. I might have 






Letters of William Cobbetl, 'Esq. 343 

thought it ; but, certainly, I had not then the most distant idea 
that what I was then writing would so quickly come back to me 
in another print, after having been read on the banks of the Ohio 
and those of the Mississippi. This single fact ; the sight of only 
one such print, is to me more than a compensation for all that 1 
have suffered in the cause of truth and freedom. 

But it is of far greater importance as a stimulant to future ex- 
ertion, and as suggesting additional care in planning and executing. 
But why should not the friends of freedom co-operate ? We see 
how firmly bound together its enemies are ; how they, for the fur- 
therance of their grand object, mutually sacrifice all their prejudi- 
ces, and even their petty conflicting interests. You have heard 
the saints of Hartford rejoice at the restoration of the pope. The 
Holy Father has embraced the Dey of Algiers, who calls him a 
Christian dog. Why should not we aid each other ? You are 
better off than we are. You have free presses in every seaport ; 
your seaports are numerous ; your masters of vessels have a di- 
rect communication with you ; you can easily come at all that we 
publish. While your continent, and all its presses and literary 
productions, are shut from us by hundreds of obstacles of which 
you have no idea, our enemies have their regular correspondents, 
their communications always open ; they know here all that is pass- 
ing in your country ; while we are wholly in the dark ; while we 
are deprived of the use of all those powerful weapons, which 
your unrestrained press would put into our hands. I hope that 
these considerations will be sufficient to induce some one of you 
at least, to forward to me, in the manner above pointed out, such 
papers and other publications, as are likely to be of benefit to the 
cause of truth and freedom, and of which you can want no assu- 
rance of my will, at any rate, to make the best possible use* 
America now begins to make a great figure in the world ; but her 
example, which, if made universally known, would be of more 
weight than her military or naval prowess, is, from the causes 
above stated, of comparatively little service. I take this op- 
portunity of expressing my best wishes to Mr. Mathew Ca- 
key, of Philadelphia, for a very excellent pamphlet, which he 
has had the goodness to send me, entitled, " A Calm Address to 
the People of the Eastern States, on the subject of the Repre- 
sentation of Slaves ; the Representation in the Senate; and the 
hostility to commerce ascribed to the Southern States." — I should 
be obliged to some one, to send me any work or works, giving an 
i account of the expenses of the government, and state govern- 
ments, of America; also other shipping, commerce, debts, taxes, 
Sac. &c. And if Mr. Carey, or some other person equally ca- 
pable, would spend a few hours in giving me an account of the 






344 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

prices of provisions and labour, I should deem it a particular 
favour. These may have chauged since I left America. 

Wm. Cobbett. 

P. S. Since writing the above, I have (22d May) received 
from some friend in Philadelphia, a small file of Auroras, con- 
taining the "EXPOSITION of the CAUSES and CHA- 
RACTER of the JVar." This paper, it appears, is official, 
and was ready for official promulgation, just at the time when 
the news of the peace arrived. I never read so able a paper ; 
never one calculated to produce so great an impression. It is an 
invaluable document for history ; a noble monument of the power 
of the human mind. If our government have received this pa- 
per, and if they will but read it carefully, they will, I am sure, 
clearly see, that any attempt either to delude, subdue, or check 
the rise of America, must fail of success. The paper would 
fill about four whole Registers, perhaps. But, though I cannot 
insert it, it will be of great use to me ; and I beg the sender to 
accept of my best thanks. 

Botley, near Southampton, May 20, 1815. 



To Lord Grcnville—on the Constitutions of England, Ameri: 

cu, and France. 

My Lord, 

In the published report of your speech of the 24th of 
last month, on the subject of the war against France, we read the 
following passage : " As to new const itidions, he (Lord G.) was 
tirmly of opinion, that a good constitution could only be formed 
by the adoption of remedies, from time to time, under the cir- 
cumstances which required them. The only instance of excep- 
tion mentioned was that of America : but that did not apply. The 
founders of tbat constitution acted with great wisdom. It was 
framed so as to produce as little change as possible in the existing 
laws and manners under the altered form of government, which, 
though a republic, was constructed as nearly as the difference 
would admit, on the MONARCHICAL form of OUR OWN 
CONSTITUTION." 

This passage, my lord, owing, I dare say, to the want of ac- 
curacy in the reporter, is not so clear, or so correct, as one might 
have wished ; but its meaning evidently is, that constitutions of 
government cannot be well formed all at once ; that the American 
constitution of government bears a very near resemblance to our 
own ; and (taking in the context) that the constitution of govern- 
ment now adopting, or settling, in France, is a bad constitution 
or system. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 345 

As to the first of these proposilions: that a constitution cannot 
be well made all at once, it is of little consequence as to the ob- 
ject which I have in view ; for the French have been more than 
25 years forming their constitution; and, however mortifying it 
may be to some people, the laws of France, even while the 
Bourbons were on the throne last year, were, for the greater 
part, laws passed by the different national assemblies, or, as 
some would call them, the jacobins. It i3 a very great mistake 
to suppose that Napoleon, either in his constitution or his code, 
began anew. He did little more than arrange, classify, reduce 
to order, and provide for enforcing the laws, under whatever 
name, passed by the different assemblies ; and this was the code 
which the Bourbons promised to adhere to and support. So 
. that (he constitution of France, as it now stands, has been the 
work of 28 years, not only of study, but of experience. It is 
very curious to hear so many persons abusing, or ridiculing, the 
French constitution, and, in almost the same breath, saying, that 
it is no more than what the people had under Louis XVIII. 
This looks a little like insincerity. 

It is, however, the alleged resemblance between the English 
and American governments which is the most interesting object 
of examination at present ; though it will, before I conclude, be 
necessary to see a little what resemblance that of France bears 
to each of the former governments. I take your lordship to mean, 
of course, that there is a very near resemblance between the 
English and American governments as they really are in opera- 
tion. Not as they are to be found in books written about con- 
stitutions. What Montesquieu, and De Lolme, and Blackstone, 
and Paley, and a long list of grave political romance writers have 
published upon the subject, we will leave wholly out of the 
question. Your lordship was talking, and so will I talk, of things 
I AS THEY ARE, and not as they ought to be ; or as they are, 
I from parrot-like habit, said to be. And here, my lord, I beg 
} leave, once for all, to state, that I anMs'ffering no opinions of my 
I own upon this subject. Your lord/nip, according to the pub- 
i lished report, says, that there is a /ear resemblance between the 
English and American governments. This fact I deny ; but 
that is all. I do not say that th/American government is better 
than ours ; nOr do I say that My, worse. I only say that it does> 
not resemble ours. Which is/ the best and which is the worst 
I leave to the decision of the reader, in whatever country he 
may live. 

But, before I enter on my proofs of the negative of this, your 

lordship's proposition, permit me to observe, for a moment, on 

the desire which is so often discovered in this country, to induce 

other nations to adapt governments like our own. No sooner 

i do we hear of a change of government in any country, than we 

44 



346 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

begin urging the people of such country to adopt a government 
like ours. The newspaper people, the Walters and Perry's, and 
the like, are everlastingly telling the French that they ought to 
come as nearly us possible fo our admirable mixed government. 
Those cunning loons, the Edinburgh Reviewers, chant the same 
litanies in every succeeding number. They despair of the 
French, because they reject our excellent model of government ; 
and they predict that the American system cannot endure long, 
because it has none of those bodies ot nobles or large proprie- 
tors, who are the best guardians of the people's rights, standing, 
as the latter do, between the people and the prince ! This was 
their talk, indeed, before your lordship and other great noblemen 
joined the ministers in support of the war. What these piace« 
hunting critics will say now is a great deal mure than I am 
able to guess. Thus, too, it was, that Burke ranted and raved. 
The French, according to him, ought to have been half put to 
death, because they despised the " admirable" mixed govern- 
ment of England. 

How he ran on; what bombastical balderdash he published 
upon this subject, your lordship knows as well as I; and you, 
doubtless, remember, that when answered by Paine, instead of 
attempting reply, he pointed out the work of his antagonist to 
be replied to by the attorney general ! Now, my lord, what can 
be the real cause of all this anxiety to get other nations to adopt 
our own sort of government ? It is not the usual practice of the 
world to be so eager to induce others to share in one's happiness. 
If a man, by any accident, finds a parcel of money in a field or 
a wood, does he run away to bring his neighbours, or even his 
cousins or brothers, to eider into a search with him? Did we 
ever hear of a tradesman; who had a set of good customers, en- 
deavour to introduce persons of the same trade to them ? Did 
ever handsome woman try to make any other woman look as 
handsome as herself, even though that other were her sister, nay, 
her daughter ? If an individual make a valuable discovery, so 
far is he from communicating it to the world, that he, if he can, 
will obtain ft patent for it, and thereby the right of punishing who- 
ever attempts even to imitate his wares. What, then, can be the 
cause of our anxiety to make other nations partakers of the bless- 
ings of our government ? We take special care to keep from them 
all we can in the way of commerce. We have a law for encourage- 
ment of our own navigation, to the discouragement of that of 
all other countries. We have laws to prevent the carrying to 
other countries, machines to facilitate the making of manufactures, 
We have la.vs to prohibit the carrying of the produce of our 
colonies to other countries, until it has been brought here. We 
have laws to prevent the exportation of live sheep, lest other 
countries should get our breeds. We have laws to punish aftir 



Letters of William Cobbctt, Esq. 347 

sans ant! manufacturers who attempt to leave this country, and 
also to punish the masters of the vessels in which they are at- 
tempting to escape; the avowed object of which laws is to pre- 
vent other countries from arriving at our state of perfection in 
manufactures and arts. How is it, then, my lord, that we are 
so generous as to our political jJossessions ? Generous, did I 
say ? Nay, obtrusive and impertinent. We are not only ten- 
dering them with both hands at once ; but we really thrust them 
upon the world ; and, if any nation be so resolutely delicate as 
to refuse to receive them, let that nation look to itself! 

" Will you give me a penny?" said Dilworth's beggar to the 
priest. " No." " Will you, for the love of Christ, give me a 
halfpenny, then, to keep me from starving ?." " No." " Will 
you, then, give one farthing?" "No" "Pray, then, since I 
must die with hunger, give me your blessing, reverend father." 
" Knee! down, my dear son, and receive it." " No," said the 
beggar, " for if it were worth but one single farthing you would 
not give it me ; so you may e'en keep your blessing to your- 
self." But we greatly surpass the priest ; for while we withhold 
commerce, navigation, manufactures, arts, artisans, manufac- 
turers, breed of animals, &c. &c. we not only offer our bless- 
ing, but we abuse those who reject it ; and there are those 
amongst us who scruple not to say, that the nation which has 
the insolence to refuse to share in our political happiness, ought 
to fee! the force of our arms. To what, then, fairly shall I as- 
cribe this desire to induce other nations to adopt our sort of go- 
vernment ? It is notorious, that men seek for companions in mi- 
sery and disgrace. Never was there a bankrupt who did not 
wish to make his appearance in a copious gazette. The coward 
looks bold when he has fled amongst a crowd. The country 
girls, who anticipate the connubial lie, always observe, and very 
truly, that they are not tiiefirat, and shall not be the last. It 
is said, that persons infected with the plague feel a pleasure in 
communicating it to others. To ascribe to a motive like any of 
these our desire to extend our sort of government to other na- 
tions would be shocking indeed. Yet, lest we should expose our- 
selves to the imputation, I think it would be best for us to be si- 
lent upon the subject ; or, at least, where nations decline to adopt 
our system, to refrain from expressing any resentment rgainst 
them on that account. John Bull's may be Ihe best government 
in the whole world ; it may be very laudable in him, very disin- 
terested, \evy humane, extraordinarily generous, to urge other 
.nations to partake in his blessings. He may lament the blind- 
ness, or the obstinacy, or the perverseness of the nations who 
refuse to accept of his offer. But why should he be angry with 
them ? Whj' should he be in a rage with them? Why should he 
quarrel with them on that account ? 



348 



Letters of William Cohbcti, Esq. 



We will now, if your lordship pleases, come to' (fie resent- 
blance between the English and the American governments. They 
are both called governments, to be sure ; and so are the kites 
and pheasants called birds; but assuredly, though I pretend not 
to say which is the best, or which is the worst, they resemble 
each other no more than do these two descriptions of the fea- 
thered race. To substantiate this assertion, I shall take the ma- 
terial points in the two cases, and state them in opposite co- 
lumns, that the contrast may at once strike every eye. 



ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. 

A king, having the sovereign power 
settled on his family by hereditary de- 
scent. His heir may be an old man or 
woman, a boy or a girl. 

The king's civil lists amount to more 
than four millions of dollars annually, 
or 1,000,000 of pounds sterling, beside 
the allowances to the royal children, 
queen, kc. &c. amounting to nearly 
400,000 pounds more. 

The king, without the consent of any 
part of the legislature, makes treaties, 
and even treaties of subsidy, agreeing to 
pay money to foreign powers. He ap- 
points ambassadors, public ministers, con- 
suls, judges, and all other officers what- 
ever. 

The king can do no -wrong. His per- 
son is sacred and inviolable. 



The king can declare wur, and make 
peace, without any body's consent. 



The king grants pensions to whom he 
chooses under 6,000 dollars a year. He 
has more than 100,000 pounds a year 
placed at his disposal for secret services, 
of which no particular account is ever 
rendered, even to the parliament. 

The HOUSE OP PEERS hold their 
seats by hereditary right ; but the king 
may make new peers whenever he 
chooses. They may be old or young, 
present or absent, abroad or at home. 

The HOUSE OF COMMONS con- 
sists of county members and city borough 
members. Be the county great or small, 
it sends two members — and, as to the 
cities and boroughs, London and West- 
minster, which contain about 800,000 
Eersons, sends six members, while Old 
arum, Gatton, and many other places, 



AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 

The chief magistrate is a PRESI- 
DENT, freely elected by the peopje 
every four years, and he must be 35 
years of age. 

The president receives a compensa- 
tion for his services which cannot be 
augmented during his presidency, and 
this compensation is 25,000 dollars, or 
6,000 pounds sterling. 

The president, with the consent of the 
senate, who are elected by the people, 
can make treaties, two thirds of the sena- 
tors concurring. With the same consent 
he appoints ambassadors, public minis- 
ters, consuls, judges, He. 

The president may be impeached,^ 
and when he is tried iu senate the chief 
justice is to preside. 

He can only be dismissed and disqua- 
Ijfedby the senate; but, beside that, he 
may be afterwards, for the same offence, 
indicted, tried, ju-Jged, and punished, 
according to law, like any other criminal. 

The president cannot declare war. 
Nor can he and the senate together do 
it : it is done by the congress s and is an 
act passed by the representatives of the 
people. 

The president can give no pension, 
nor, even with the consent of the senate, 
make any grant whatever of the public 
money — not even to the amount of a dol- 
lar Every thing of this sort is done by 
the congress, comprising the whole of. 
the representatives of the people. 

The SEN\TE consists of two mem- 
bers from each of the states in the union. 
They are elected by the state legislatures, 
who have been elected by the people. 
They serve for four [six] years. The 
constitution positively forbids the grant- 
ing of any title of nobility Every sena- 
tor is to be not under thirty years of age 
when elected, and is to be a resident in 
the state for which he is elected. 

The HOUSE OF REPRESENTA- 
TIVES consists of members from the 
seyeral states, a number proportioned to 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 



349 



ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. 

containing not a hundred persons each, 
send each two members. The members 
are elected for seven yearn. 

The qualifications for county mem- 
hers GOO/, a year in land ; and MOl. a year 
m land for borough members. 

The qualifications of votes we too va- 
rious to be half described. In counties 
the freeholders only vote, and these do 
not form a twentieth part of the payers 
of taxes. A house or a bit of freehold 
land worth 40 shillings a year gives a 
vote ; while houses and lands to the 
amount of thousands a year, if retaining 
any of the feudal character, give no vote 
at all But the best account of this mat- 
ter is to be found in the petition present- 
ed to the house of commons, and receiv- 
ed by that house on the 6th of May, 1793. 
In that petition it is stated — 

Members. 
" That 30 peers nominate 66 
influence 39 

105 

** That 71 peersnondnate 8S 

influence 75 

163 

. " That 45 Commoners nominate 61 
influence 22 

83 



AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 

the population of the states, according to 
actual enumeration. They are elected 
for tivo years. 

The qualification for members is 
merely that of having attained the age 
of '25 years, and having been 7 years a 
citizen of the United irtates. 

As to ihe qualification of voters, it is 
simply that of having paid taxes, and 
being in a state to be culled on for taxes. 
There are, in the different states, slight 
differences in the regulations as to voting ; 
hut, generally and substantially, the pay - 
Z "JT °f taxes, small or greet in amount, 
gives a right to vote. Of course, as the 
president, senate, and representatives are 
all chosen from this source, they are 
all leally the representatives of tlie peo- 
ple. It is manifestly a government car- 
ried on by the people, through their de- 
legates. 



That 91 Commoners nominate 
influence 



82 
57 

139 



« ABSTRACT. 

Members. 

n That 71 Peers and the Treasury 
return by nomination and in- 
fluence 170 

'< That 91 Commoners return by 
nomination and influence 139 

" Total members, returned by pri- 
vate patronage for England and 
Wales, exclusive of the forty- 
five for Scotland- 309 



" That in this manner a majority of 
the entire house is chosen, and are ena- 
bled, being a majority, to decide all ques- 
tions in the name of the -whole people of 
England and Scotland." 

Jill the ministers have seats in one or 
the other of the houses, and a great num- 
ber of their secretaries and clerks beside. 
In 1808, when an account of this matter 
■was ordered to be printed by the house 



No person holding an office unJer the 
government can be a member of either 
house; and no one can be appointed to 
any place, (during the time for which he 
was elected,) if such place has b J °* 






350 



Letters of William Cohbett, Esq. 



ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. 

of commons, there were 76 persons in 
that house who received, amongst them, 
178,994 pounds sterling; a year of the pub- 
lic money. What was received in this 
■way by the peers and their families I 
have no means of knowing But, not only 
caii members of either house enjoy the 
profits of places or of grants, they can 
receive appointments and grants -while 
they are members. They frequently take 
part in voting m< ney to tliemsel.es iSut 
there is this safeguard,* that, in some 
eases, at least, when a member receives 
a lucrative appointment, he vacates his 
seat, and must, if he continues a mem- 
ber be re-elected ! It is, however, very 
rarely that his •• constituents" refuse to 
re-elect him ! Oh ! la belle chose ! 

The king can 'issolve the parliament 
■whenever he pleases ; and the parlament 
has been dissolved, at every change of 
ministry, for some time past He can, 
also, prorogue the house at his pleasure. 

If the king disapproves of a bill, he 
rejects it at once, without assigning any 
reasons. 



AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 



The king alone coins money, 
troops, and fits out navies. 



created during 
legislature. 



the time he was in the 



raises 



The privilege of habeas corpus was 
suspended in England for several years, 
during Pitts administration, when there 
was neither rebellion nor invasion. 



It is treason to compass the death of 
the king ; and this may be by writing, 
or talking, and indirectly as well as di- 
rectly. The crime of treasoa, here, is 
against the king ; in Unerica, it is 
against the United Stales; that is to 
say. against the people By an act of this 
king s reign to last till his death and a 
year lo ger'i it is declared to be high 
treason to endeavour to overawe the 
king, or either house of parliament, into 
a change of me isures or councils j and, 
at one time, it was high treason to send 
to any person in the dominions of France 
a bag of flour, a flitch of bacon, or a 
hushel of potatoes. 

In England, the church establishment 
receives, in rents and tythes, about an 
eighth part of the amount of the rental 
of the whole kingdom. All the b'shops, 
deans, prebends and the grea er pan of 
the beneficed priests, are appointed by 
the crown. There are lest laws, which 



The president has no power to dissolve 
the congress or either of the houses, nor 
to adjourn their meetings, unless they 
disagi ee upon the subject. Nor can he 
cah them together at any but at periods 
fixe i by law, except on extraordinary 
occ sions. 

If the president does not approve of a 
bill passed by the two houses, he sends it 
back, with his objections ; but if two 
thirds of both houses persevere, the bill 
becomes a law. 

The congress alone has power to coin 
money, to raise troops, to build and equip 
ships. 

l'he privilege or writ of habeas corpus 
cannot be suspended unless when, in 
cases of rebellion or invasio., the public 
safety may require it America has 
lately been invaded i n several parts, has 
had her towns burnt and plundered, her 
coast imaged and devastated; and yet 
the habeas corpus -was not suspended. 

Treason consists omy in evying -war 
against the UNITED STATES, or in 
adhering to their enemies, giving therjv 
aid and comfort. 



" No law shall be made by congress 
respecting an established reli- 
gion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof." No religious test is required 
of an> man to qualify him for an> office. 
Any min miy publish what he pleases 
about religion. No tvthes in America. 



Letters of William Cobbdt, Esq. 



351 



ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. 

shut out from political and civil privileges 
great numbers of the people ; and men 
are frequently severely punished, put in 
felons jails, and fined and pillor-'eil into 
the bargain, for writing printing, or pub- 
lishing, their opinions about religion. 
The bishops have seats in the house of 
peers. Marriages are not legal unless 
sanctioned by the pi Jests of the establish- 
ed church. 

As to the liberty of SPEECH and of 
the Pi? ESS, many acts have been pass- 
ed to abridge both; but particularly one 
of the I -th of July, 1799, which suppress- 
ed all political ocieties, and all societies 
for debating- and lecturing, except un- 
der l>cetises from the king's justices of 
the peace, or police magistrates. Even 
lodges of the poor childi-h ficemasons 
■were compelled to have a license to meet, 
and to be registered ; and, even after 
this, the king's justices might Older any 
lodge to be discon inued ; that is to say, 
broken up. The kind's justices, in case 
of disobedience of this law, might punish 
at once, by a fine of iO pounds, or three 
months' impiisonment ; or, if the of- 
fenders were convicted on indictment, 
they were to be transported for seven 
years. Public-house keepers were to 
lose their licenses if they permitted such 
meetings at their houses. Every place 
for lecturing, debating, or reading news- 
papers, where money shall be paid, is 
to bo deemed a disorderly house, unless 
previously licensed. The kings justices 
were authorized to take the license from 
any publican ; that is to say, to put au 
end to his trade, upon receiving informa- 
tion that seditious or immoral publica- 
tions were read in his house. As to the 
PRESS, every printer is, by the same 
act, compelled to give notice to the clerk 
of the king's justices, that he keeps a 
press or presses for printing, and he is 
to receive a certificate of having given 
such notice. The justices' clerk is to 
transmit a copy of the notice to the king's 
secretary of state, in whose office the 
names and places of abode of all the 
printers, and the number of the presses* 
&c. &c are all nicely registered. Letter 
Founders are to do the same ; and, 
moreover, they are to keep an account 
of the types and printing presses that 
thev sell, and are to produce them, 
■whenever required, to any justice of the 
peace Then, again, the name and place 
of abode of the printer must be printed 
on every paper or book; and anyone- 
issuing forth, dispersing after published, 
any paper or book, without the name 
and place of abode of the printer, to 1m 
punished by the forfeiture of 20 pounds. 



AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 

Marriages are settled under the eye of 
the civil magistrate, if the parties choose. 



No law can be passed ahridgine the 
FREEDOM OF SPEECH, or of the 
PRESS. 



o52 



Letters of William C'obbdl, Esq. 



ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. 

The printer is compelled to keep a copy 
of every tiling he prints; he is to write 
on it the name and abode of the person 
who employed him to print it, under the 
penalty of '20 pounds. Persons selling or 
handing about papers may be seized and 
carried before a justice, to have it deter- 
mined whether they have been offending 
the law. Any justice may empower 
pence officers to search for presses and 
types. HE .inspects to be illegally used, 
and to seize them and the printed papers 
found As to newspapers, the proprie- 
tors, printers, and publishers, are all 
compelled to go to the stamp-office and 
make an affidavit of their being such, and 
also of their place of abode. They are 
compelled to deposite one copy of each 
paper at the office ; and this copy, with 
their own affidavits, is all that is called 
for in proof of their being all guilty of 
any libel found in the paper. 

An act was passed on the 18th of De- 
cember, 1793, making it death for any 
part of the people, above 50 in number, 
to meet for the purpose of petitioning, 
unless notice and authority for holding 
such meeting be given to, aad obtained 
from the king's justices. The penalty of 
HEATH, without benefit of clergy, oc- 
curs no less than nine times in this act. 
This act, not to spin out its details, puts 
all political meetings wholly under the 
absolute authority of the justices, sheriffs, 
and other officers ; who can, in some ca- 
ses, prevent their taking place at all ; and 
in all cases, put an end to them at their 
sole discretion. First, a written notice, 
signed by seven householders of the place, 
is to be given of a meeting; this notice 
is to be conveyed to the clerk of the jus- 
tices. The justices, /=ftus apprized of the 
meeting, arrive ; and if they hear any 
body propounding or maintaining pro- 
positions for altering any thing by law 
established, except by the authority of 
king, lords, and commons, they may or- 
der the offending parties into custody. 
There needs no more. This is quite 
clear. It may be excellent; but it is 
impossible to find any thing like it in 
America. 

According to the amount, ordered to 
be printed by the house of comruons in 
1808, the following are a few of o^r 
sinecures : 
Auditor of the Excheqner, 

Lord Grenville £4,000 

Teller, Earl Camden 23,417 

Earl Bathurst 2,700 

Clerk of the Polls, Hon. 

H. Addington S,00?- 

Chamberlains, Hon. F. 

North ' 1,755 



AMERICAN GOVERNMENT, 



No law can be passed to abridge the 
right of the people peaceably to assemble, 
aud to petition for a redress of grievances. 



There are no sinecpre's >si America. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 



353 



The whole of the civil government of. 
the United States, President, Congress, 
Ambassadors, Ministers, do not cost 
70,000/. a year. 



There are no pensions, except granted 
by congress for actual and well known 

cervices. 



ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. 

— ■ Montague Burgoyne* £ 1,660 
Master and Worker of 

Mint, Earl Bathurst 3,000 

Register of Admiralty and 

Prize Courts, Lord Ar- 

den 38,556 

It is stated that there are 
great deductions out of 
this ; but it is not said who 
receives them £77,788 

I his is not being very select. I could 
have easily selected much fewer places 
or pensions, to have made the same 
amount. 

Here I will not take our fifty thoutand- 
ers, like the Duke of York's, but will 
take a few of the small fry, and espe- 
cially the anti-jacobin authors, or their 
descendants - 

Joseph Planta £l20 

Mrs. Burke 1,200 

Sir Francis d'lvernois 200 

Rd. Cumberland's children 200 
Mrs. Mallet du Pan 200 

Rev. Herbert MarBh 514 

Wm. Gilford 329 

The English government collects from 
the people 71. 10s. each, a year, including 
the whole population, men, women, chil- 
dren, paupers, soldiers, sailors, eonvicts, 
and prisoners of all sorts. 

The king has state coaches, horse- 
guards, foot guards, several palaces, and 
parks at the public expense. 

People kneel, and kiss the king's hand. 

* This Mr. Burgoyne has just written 
a circular letter to his neighbours in Es- 
sex, calling upon them to spend their last 
shilling, if necessary, in a war against the 
Emperor of France, whom he calls every 
thing but an honest man. N. B. Mr. Bur- 
goyne has had this place for more than 
thirty years ! Will he now give it up, 
seeing that money is so much wanted for 
this just and necessary war ? 

I could, my lord, proceed much further were it necessary ; but 
from what we have seen, I think it is plain, that there is no like- 
ness whatever in the two governments. As to that of France, 
as it is now new modelled, it appears to me to resemble the Ameri- 
can rather than ours. People in France vote for members of the 
legislature, upon the principle of representation and taxation going 
hand in hand. There are no feudal titles or rights in Fiance. 
The peers are, in fact, no more than eminent citizens, having no 
great estates attached to their titles and seats* There is, and there 
is to be, no established religion. The two Chambers in France, 
like the Congress in America, are forbidden to pass any law re- 
specting a predominant church. Religious opinions are to be 

4b 



The American government collects 
from the people 12s. 6d each, a year ; in 
taxes, taking in the whole of the popu- 
lation. 

The president has none of these. 



Nobody ever kneels to the president, 
or kisses his hand. 



354 Letters of William Cobbeit, Esq. 

free. There are to be no books which may not be freely com- 
mented on and examined into. There is to be nothing so sacred 
that reason may not approach it. There are to be no tythes in 
France, consequently no benefices to bestow. This is a govern- 
ment certainly very much like that of America. Mr. Grattan 
observed that the French people had exchanged the paradise 
of the Bourbons for the " eternal damnation of a military des- 
potism." May be so; but they seem resolved not to have 
feudal lilies and courts ; monasteries and tythes ; gabelles, corvees, 
and game laws. May be so ; but it has not been proved. 

In conclusion, my lord, give me leave to suggest, that it would 
be as wise in us not to cry up our sort of government so much. 
If it be better than that of France, why want them to have one 
like it ? Most of my neighbours are well enough content if they 
are but able to get good crops themselves, without thinking much 
about those of other people. WV are always calling the French 
our enemy, and representing their power as so dangerous to 
Europe ; and why should we then fret ourselves because they 
wi|i not be happier than they are ? It would certainly be wise 
to let them aione ; for, by evincing such an everlasting anxiety 
about their form of government, I am afraid that we shall give 
rise to a suspicion, that it is their form of government, and not 
the ambition of their chief, that we dread, and against which 
we are about to make war. I am, &c. &c. 

Wm. Cobbett, 



To Mr. Niles, Proprietor of the Weekly Register, published at 
Baltimore, in the United Stales of America. 

Sir, 

After thanking you for the numbers of your publication, 
which you have been so good as to send me, I proceed to the 
subject of this letter, the object of which is to give to the people 
of the last remaining republic some information, which they 
might not be able otherwise to obtain, relative to the effects pro- 
duced, and likely to be produced, by the recent events in France ; 
information which it is very necessary for you to possess ; for the 
time may not be distant, not near so distant as you imagine, when 
you yourselves will feel some of the consequences of the events 
to which I allude. 

This second fall of Napoleon has caused wonderful joy in 
England, amongst the higher orders, and especially amongst the 
boroughniongers, who have been now, a second time, delivered ; 
or, at least, have obtained a respite a second time. The re- 
action, which will certainly come, may operate again3t them* 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 355 

But, in the meanwhile, they get rid of their alarms, which were, a 
month ago, greater than at any former period. 

The boasting here is beyond all conception. Though the fact 
is notorious, that the Prussians and the Belgians were righting on 
our side against the French ; though it is notorious that we held a 
vast superiority of numbers and of means of al! sorts, we talk 
here as if the victory were wholly our own. Two hundred thou- 
sand pounds, at the first slap, has been voted to the " great 
lord," as the Spaniards call him. What did you vote to Mr. 
Jackson, who won a more decided and more glorious victory at 
New-Orleans ? — Burke, with his pension in his pocket, calls 
nobility and honours the CHEAP defence of nations ; and so 
they may in countries psho.se people do not receive money along 
with the honours. But this grant of money, enormous as it is, 
appears to be only a beginning. A proposition has been made to 
make a grant to the Duke of York, as commander in chief of 
the army, he having, in that capacity, provided the army for the 
duke of Wellington to fight with. He has been paid a pretty 
good salary for this, to be sure ; but this, it seems, is not enough. 
It is, therefore, now proposed, or at least has been proposed by a 
member of parliament, to give him money on account of the suc- 
cess of the army. 

You will ask, what takes place in this respect, when we get 
beaten ? — as in the case of Plattsburg, Lake Champlain, Lake 
Erie, New- Orleans, &c. Why, we hold our tongues. We do 
not talk about the mailer, except to praise the valour of our troop3 
for a day or two. Indeed, the country people in England, and a 
great many of the towns people, never know any thing of such 
defeats. The London newspapers, which alone have any wide 
circulation, are employed in the spreading of falsehood and the 
suppressing of truth. The country newspapers, with very few- 
exceptions, are the mere gutters, through which pass a part only 
of the filth of the more copious London sewers ; but it is, if pos- 
sible, the worst part. When the news of your grand achieve- 
ment at New-Orleans arrived, it was at once asserted, that WE 
had gained a great victory. Details even were published. The 
same was repeated, with trifling variations, for a week. Thus the 
country papers had time to play their part. The victory was 
believed in from one end of the kingdom to the other. At the 
end of a fortnight, out slipped the account of the defeat in the 
middle of a Gazette, stuffed up with advertisements and pro- 
motions. We could not accuse the government of not publishing 
it; but, in fact, the mass of the people never either saw it, or 
heard of it; and, to this hour, there is not a man in the village, 
in which I now sit writing, who does not believe that we 
gave you a hearty beating at New-Orleans. In short, the mass 



356 Letters of William Cobbell, Esq, 

of the people in this country know les3 of the affairs of the nation 
than any people that I ever heard of. 

At present, however, it would be unreasonable to expect us to 
show any thing like moderation. Not only do our newspapers 
approve of tbv± proclamation of Louis XVIII. in which he talks 
of punishing traitors ; but they are preparing their readers to 
expect a direct interference, on our part, in the regulating hia 
government, and even in the choosing of his ministers. We are 
told, in so many words, that we have a right to demand the death 
of some of the " rebels ;" that we have a right to compel the king 
to adopt a strong government. In the meanwhile, others are pro- 
posing to strip the city of Paris of statues and other ornaments, to 
bring them to England to adorn a monument to be erected in 
memory of the late victory. There seems to be no bounds to 
the degradation to which some of our writers wish to reduce the 
French people and name. Some demand real, solid securities 
for the future. This, perhaps, means Dunkirk, before which our 
Duke of York fought a battle once. Calais, perhaps, too. The 
demolition of the basin of Cherbourg. There is no knowing 
where we are to stop. You remember the punishment that our 
pious king Richard I. inflicted on his rebel subjects in the 
garrisons which opposed him after his return from his crusade to 
the Holy Land ! That, as being the most effectual mode of pre- 
venting the future propagation of rebels, may, perhaps, appear 
to the boroughmonger writers as the mode to be adopted towards 
the French people upon this occasion. 

That there will be bloody vengeance taken now, there is no 
doubt. The recollection of the battles of Genappe, Dunkirk, 
Austerlitz, Marengo, Hulen, Wagram, Eylau, Friedland, Moskwa, 
Smolen&ko, the Helder, the capture of Rome, Naples, Turin, 
Amsterdam, Madrid, Hanover, Moscow, Berlin twice, Vienna 
twice; in short, the defeats, the humiliations, the shames, and the 
bodily fears of a quarter of a century, and, above all, the expo- 
sures of the priests, are now assembling all their force to obtain 
vengeance. The convention of the Helder, and the convention 
which gave Maria Louisa to the arms of Napoleon, are now to be 
avenged. The pope has to get vengeance for his humiliation ; and 
so they have all. But what are they to do ? They cannot kill 
the people of France. AH Europe, with more than a million of 
men in arms, and with fifty millions of English money, will replace 
Louis on the throne of France. But they cannot remain in 
France; and if they do not remain in France, they cannot keep 
him upon that throne. He is now, as last year, moving along to- 
wards the capital under the protection of more than half a million 
of soldiers, who have made war, and are making war upon French- 
men, fighting on their own soil, and in its defence. As long a? 
Frenchmen are kept down by the bayonet, he will, of course, re- 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 35 1 

main there ; but, how long will that be ? He was on the throne 
last year : but he was not there six months after the hostile armies 
had quitted France. To hear him threaten the French, as he did 
some time ago, with chastisement by foreign armies, 1,200,000 
in number of men, was natural enough ; but to hear him now 
talking of their sorrow at his departure, and of their joy at his re- 
turn, is calculated to fill one with admiration at the impudence of 
his advisers. He knew well," that it was under the bayonets of 
foreigners only that he dared advance ; that he, or any of his 
family, dared show their nose in France ; and yet, even while he 
is following close upon the heels of those foreigners, he boasts of 
being the object of the love and admiration of the French peo- 
ple I No, no, Louis ; you are restored, as you were last year, by 
foreign bayonets ; and the question is yet to be decided, whether 
those bayonets will be able to keep you on the throne. You have 
yet a stormy time to pass. The battle between light and liberty 
on one side, and darkness and despotism on the other ; that battle 
which began in 1789 is still going on. It may rage less fiercely 
for a time ! but it will not be put an end to unless by the triumph 
of the former. 

As to the conduct of Napoleon, upon the last occasion, it was 
useless for him any longer to attempt to support his authority as 
a sovereign ; and, indeed, it would have been well if he had re- 
signed immediately after his return from Elba. This was fully 
expected by many men in England ; and it appears from his last 
act that we have heard of, namely, his abdication in favour of 
his son, that he was only restrained by his foolish attachment to 
the Austrian princess and her child ! After all his glorious deeds ; 
after ail his famous battles ; after all his wise acts of legislation ; 
all his magnanimous proceedings ; all that he had done in the cause 
of mankind ; after all this, how painful is it to see him vainly han- 
kering after the preserving of a crown to his family ! and, which 
adds to the mortification, to a son which he had by the daughter 
of a king; and, of an Austrian, too! It is melancholy to think 
of. If it had been the son of some tradesman* s daughter ! But 
to risk the freedom and happiness of that gallant nation, who has 
twice carried him victorious to Berlin, and twice to Vienna; to 
risk the freedom and happiness of that brave people for the sake 
of the grandson of a king, and that king an AUSTRIAN KING, 
too, is horrible to think of. If, upon his return from Elba, he had 
frankly acknowledged his great error, namely, that of connecting 
himself with the old royal family, and had declared again for a re- 
public in name as well as in substance ; if he had done this, and 
had called for the convention, no power in Europe would have 
moved against France. But when men saw that the emperor 
was still to remain ; that they were again to have an empress to 
maintain with all her royal progeny ; and that they were like! v to 



358 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

descend in fee from father to son ; when they saw this, the y could 
not possibly feel any portion of the old republican fire warm their 
hearts. Say what they would, still it was a battle between an 
emperor and a king. 

Then the new nobility. It was impossible to animate a people 
in their cause. They had suffered under the nobility before. It 
was difficult to see why a man should risk life or property for the 
sake of preserving to these gentry their titles. To see these old 
republicans forming a house of peers, and calling themselves 
dukes and counts ! This was, indeed, no more than a consequence 
of the imperial part of the plan ; but it could not fail to fill with 
apprehension all those who wished well to the republican cause, 
and who recollected that it was under the banners of " liberty 
and equality" that Brunswick was chased out of France, and th-at 
the coalition of kings was covered with disgrace, in the memora- 
ble years 1793, 4, and 5. The truth is, that to defend France 
against such a coalition, all the energy of a republic was necessa- 
ry in those years ; and it was become now as necessary as ever. 
But such energy could not exist under an imperial and arislo- 
cralical government. The French people felt no more what they 
felt in the first years of. the revolution. The proprietors were 
anxious about their land ; but that alone was not sufficient. 

Nevertheless, in spite of these errors of Napoleon, he is enti- 
tled to the gratitude of mankind. He pulled down the pope, the 
monks in Spain and Italy, the inquisition in those countries. He 
carried light and liberal principles to dark and enslaved nations. 
He formed a code of wise and just laws; or, at least, he confirm- 
ed those which had been passed by the republicans. He was a 
soldier, too, fond of military glory, but, without arms he could not 
have effected what he did effect in favour of civil and religious 
liberty in distant countries. Much of what he did will now be 
undone ; but it will be impossible for all the kings and priests in 
the world to make men as ignorant and submissive as they were 
before he marched over the Alps. The enemies of freedom, the 
black-hearted friends of despotism, flatter themselves that now 
they shall see mankind as superstitious and as slavish as they were 
a quarter of a century back. They will be deceived. They 
will never again see a touch of the " holy thorn" sought after in 
France as a cure for a cancer. The present race of perverse old 
women cannot live forever, and they will have no siiccessors. The 
young ones do not, and will not, believe that holy water will pre- 
serve them from thunder and lightning ; and, unless they believe 
this, there is no fear of their husbands becoming slaves. The 
common people in England believe in an almanac, called " Moore's 
almanac;" they believe that the cunning people who publish it 
have a knowledge of events of all sorts, and especially the wea- 
ther. Many of the farmers refer to this almanac to know when 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 359 

they ought to cut their grass or to slay their pigs. You will 
hardly believe this in America ; but I, in the face of my coun- 
trymen, assert it to be a fact. The men who sell this book find 
their accounts in it. It is sold by the company of stationers, who 
serve our rabble, in this respect, in the stead of priests. The 
people of France are far more enlightened. The pairings of St. 
Andrew's nails, which used to be a most precious relic, would now 
be used only as manure in that country. The breeches of Po- 
como, so wonder-working in former times, would now fetch only 
their worth as old rags. Napoleon (and that was his greatest 
fault) gave, in some sort, a sanction to falsehood, and hypocrisy, 
and imposture, by going to mass. He did not, indeed, compel 
any body else to go to mass : but his example, in this, was of 
evil tendency. The act was, besides, a compromise with fraud. 

Still the world owes him much, and particularly for having, by 
his return to France, left no doubt in the mind of any man, that 
in the restoration of the old family the French people had no share. 
It was always asserted that the French people longed for the re- 
turn of the Bourbons. Louis was called le desire. But now it 
must be clear to everybody, that he was, and now is, restored by 
foreign force alone. The case is now too plain to be confus- 
ed or misrepresented. It is a triumph of kings or priests over 
republican institutions. None doubt of the triumph ; no one can 
deny that; but it is not the act of the people of France. They 
had tried the ancient dynasty before ; they had tried the new or- 
der of things ; the ancient dynasty was restored ; and they again 
drove away the ancient dynasty, which is now again (by this time, 
I dare say) restored by the means of a combined foreign army, 
who have defeated the armies of France. 

So sensible are the aristocrats of this, that they, even now, 
are almost afraid of the ultimate consequences of their success. 
They do not see their way clearly out of the adventure. Are 
the foreign armies to be kept up in France ? Is France to be dis- 
armed ? How long can either last ? The truth is, France is 
too extensive and too populous to be long kept down. She is not, 
and cannot be, loaded with debts. The moral effects of the re- 
volution cannot now be eradicated. It is useless, in short, to re- 
store the king, unless they could also restore the breeches of St. 
Pocomo, and the virtues of the holy thorn. These, and divine 
right, must rise together, or neither can stand for any length of 
time. The king, who will hardly call himself le desire this time, 
has, in his proclamation to his " loving subjects," denied that 
he ever meant to restore the tylhcs or the feudal rights ; and 
yet these are of older date than his title to the throne. At any 
rate, he will never long maintain his throne without them. They 
are as necessary to his political power as food is to his body ; or, 



k 



360 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

rather, as swords, guns, and powder, are to the army now em- 
ployed in his restoration. 

So you see, that a counter revolution is not a thing so easily- 
accomplished as many seem to imagine. Your New-England no- 
blesse and priests will, I dare say, rejoice exceedingly at this 
triumph of the kings and priests in Europe ; and we, in England, 
have, in some sort, good reason to boast of it ; but still, if Napo- 
leon were to be murdered today, and all the old republicans 
hanged up to-morrow, the thing would not be more than a tenth 
part over. Foreign armies tnust remain in France, or there is 
no security for the king's remaining on the throne. When, then, 
is this state of things to terminate ? Not, at any rate, before 
another hundred millions are added to the debt of England ; and 
even for years to come, it will be impossible for the allies, upon 
their principles, to disarm to any considerable extent. The 
whole of Europe is in a ferment. Light has gone forth, and it 
is impossible to put it out. Hanging and quartering will do nothing 
towards it. Men must again believe in the virtues of holy water. 
That was the main prop of the power of the Bourbons ; and with- 
out that, they will in vain endeavour to keep themselves long up- 
on the throne without the aid of foreign armies. 

How a sensible man in France, quietly settled on his farm, 
must laugh at all that is passing ! He must be highly amused at 
seeing us taxed anew to the amount of a tenth part of our pos- 
sessions for the purpose of forcing him and his countrymen to 
endure the sway of a Bourbon ; a Bourbon desire too ! He must 
laugh to see how we are fretting, and fuming, and arming, and 
fighting, and paying away our money, to prevent him from being 
a republican citizen. He must wonder what we are taking all 
this trouble, and incurring all this expense for. But if he knew 
what boroughs were, his wonder would soon cease. If he knew 
what effect these have in making us so generously anxious about 
the regularly governing of other countries, he would soon cease 
to be surprised at our late zeal and our present joy. 

You, in America, understand this matter well. I read, with 
great pleasure, in many of your papers, the just descriptions 
which you gave of our motives in these wars. But you may be 
deceived as to the effect of them. Nations are often ruined 
while their governments are gaining force. We are screwed up 
to a war pitch, and, while we are at war, we are strong. You 
saw how we were enfeebled by the last peace, short as was its 
duration ; and, I assure you, that there is now, in this country, a 
genera! dread of the effects of peace. Our situation is this, the 
taxes, on account of the debt, and the army and navy, are, and 
must be, so great, that England must be the dearest country in 
the world. Even this second restoration of the Bourbons will, 
I should suppose, cost ua about four millions of taxes annually, 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 361 

FOR EVER, which alone is more than the whole of your reve- 
nue. As to discontents in England, think nothing of them ; 
they are not worth your notice. But income, ingenuity, in- 
dustry, will all seek cheap living; and those who have to buy 
goods will go to the cheapest market. This debt and array will 
produce a serious change in our affairs, in a short time. We may, 
possibly, see the French people tolerably ill treated ; but that 
will not pay our taxes. 

By these wars against the French, we have added nearly fif- 
teen millions a year to our peace taxes. And what have we got 
which we might not have had, if we had remained at peace ? 
The French had then a king ; they then had abolished feudal 
rights ; they then had abolished tythes. And have they not 
done so now ? But the noblesse are now to have their titles* 
The fools might have had their chateaux and their lands, if they 
had not run away to join the foreign armies; and now these are 
sold away from them. What, then, have we gained for our fifty 
millions of taxes to be paid annually in peace? Ask your New- 
England right honourables this, and they will tell you that we 
have got a great deal ; for, that we have got " regular govern- 
ment and social order." I am yours, &c. 

William Cobbett, 

Botley, near Southampton, 5th July, 1815. 



TO — 

Gentlemen, 

I beg you to communicate my thanks to the Republican 
Citizens of Albany, and to assure them that I think myself high- 
ly honoured by their present, especially when I take into view the 
grounds on which it has been presented, and the enlightened state 
of the public mind, in the country whence it has traversed the 
ocean to find me in this obscure village. 

Certainly, if my advice had been followed by the statesmen 
of England, the late war with America would never have taken 
place. But I am far from certain that, seeing the result, the war 
has not been, or, at least, will not prove, ia the end, beneficial to 
mankind; and that is to say, beneficial to the real representa- 
tive, or, self-government. For, without freedom, what is man 
better than the beasts of the field. These have an abundance to 
eat and drink, to wear, and whereon to repose ; aud, therefore, are 
not in any wise surpassed in happiness or in dignity by the sub- 
jects of despots, whatever names or forms the despots or des- 
potism may assume. And, without real representative govern- 
ment, freedom cannot exist. There are only two states in civil 
society : one, in which the governed give their assent to the laws; 
the other } in which laws are made without their assent. Tho 

40 



362 Letters of IVilliani Cobbett, Esq. 

first is a state of freedom ; the other a state of slavery. In the 
one case the people submit to rules agreed on by themselves ; in 
the other they submit to a master. 

The suit of clothes which you have sent me, proves very 
clearly that you cau make as fine and as beautiful broadcloth as 
any in the world. Those to whom I have shown it, say it is the 
very finest thej- ever saw. But though I rejoice exceedingly at 
your astonishing progress in this and other branches of manufac- 
ture, which, for the reasons given by me in my preface to a re- 
publication of Mr. Livingston's woik on sheep, I look upon as 
a change in the affairs of (he world, singularly favourable to the 
happiness of all people, and as unfavourable to the cause of des- 
potism ; still the war has been more beneficial to mankind in an- 
other way, the events and the termination of it having clearly prov- 
ed, that, to defend a country against the most powerful, and active', 
and best disciplined enemies, there need be neither standing armies, 
privileged orders, titles, decorations, nor expensive government, 
provided the people be the makers of their own laws, the choosers 
of their chiefs, and be, at the same time, enlightened in their minds. 
This is the great, the important, the most useful fact, which the 
late war has established beyond all dispute. 

The pensioned Burke talked of titles and privileges as the 
cheap defence of nations ; as if he had forgotten the immense 
sums of money with which these are always accompanied. You 
will see that nearly a million of dollars have been voted to one 
of our commanders for one victory, beside nearly two millions 
before for other military services. These sums would make a 
deep cut into the whole of your country's revenue for a year. 
But, while this is going on, it has been stated in parliament that 
the county jails are filled with debtor farmers, and the country 
swarms with paupers. If, indeed, the pensioned Burke had seen 
you, with a President, costing 25 thousand dollars a year, and 
with generals and commodores, unpensioned^untitled, urged on 
solely by the love of freedom and a sense of duty, not only de- 
fending the sacred soil of their country, but performing deeds of 
heroism without a parallel in the annals of European nations, with 
all their titles, decorations, and pecuniary rewards ; if he had lived 
to see this; if he bad seen the war wound up by a vdLtge lawyer 
at New-Orleans, with a band of raw militia, whose officers even 
were scarcely in uniform, by defeating, and putting to flight, after 
an immense slaughter, superior numbers of the best disciplined, 
and. bravest, and best commanded invaders that Europe ever had 
to boast of; if he had lived to see this, and to see your brave coun- 
tryman, Jackson, without title or pecuniary reward, return, per- 
haps, again to his occupation at the bar — then, indeed, the pen- 
sioned Burke might weh have exclaimed, behold, here, the cheap 
defence of nations. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 363 

It is by establishing, and making; known throughout the world, 
facts like these; it is by affording such lessons and such examples 
to mankind, that the late war has done a good which far outweighs 
all the temporary misery which it occasioned. Those lessons, 
and those examples, must, in the end, produce their due degree 
of effect. But give me leave to avail myself of this opportunity 
to express my anxious hope that it will be the constant object, the 
never-ceasing care of the people of America, to guard, as they 
would guard the apple of their eye, those principles of their con- 
stitution which forbid the creating of privileged orders. To you 
the introduction of titles would be the death of freedom. The 
very first step towards that fatal measure would be followed by a 
corruption of manners and every evil of civil society. Whene- 
ver men in such a state as yours begin to wish to place themselves 
and families above the mass of their fellow citizens, ihey start 
without restraint in the career of all sorts of baseness. The ap- 
pellations and epithets of Squire, and Excellency, and Honour, 
and Hjnourable, given amongst yon, without thought, in general, 
have a mischievous tendency. What have you to do with these 
old badges of the feudal times, or these modern inventions of Eu- 
ropean courts? The president, the governor, the members of con- 
gress, the secretary, the ambassador, the commodore, the general, 
the judge, the sheriff, the mayor, the justice, the doctor, the priest, 
if you have one, are sufficiently designated and sufficiently ho- 
noured when they are called by the name of their office. Any 
thing further smacks of aristocracy — -which, wherever great riche3 
are accumulated, requires to be watched as narrowly as those 
weeds, which, if not checked in time, would completely overtop, 
subdue, and destroy the crops destined for the food of man. 

The happiness of America arises chiefly, not from the great 
learning possessed by any part of her citizens, but from the en- 
lightened state of the minds of the whole population. This has 
arisen from the means of education which all possess. These 
means arise, not so much from the superior industry of Americans 
(for they labour less, far less, than the people of England) as 
from the cheapness of their government, which may safely be 
cheap, because it is strong in the good sense, the information, 
freedom, and happiness of the people. Next to your enlightened 
state of mind comes, as a cause of your happiness, that modera- 
tion in the desire to amass wealth, which is the natural conse- 
quence of an absence of titles and family distinctions. All the 
money of Peru would not place either of your sons above the 
son of your poorest neighbour. Since, therefore, no great end is 
to be obtained by the possession of wealth, men are less likely to 
use unjustifiable meaus in obtaining it, as well as less likely to ap- 
ply it to a corrupt use, or to heap it on one child to the ruin of all 
the rest. Hence that equal distribution of property ; hence lhaX 






364 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

stubborn spirit which makes the labourer refuse to call his em- 
ployer master; hence that consciousness of self worth, which 
makes meanness and crimes so rare ; and hence, in the Americans, 
that fidelity to their country and their colours, and that contempt 
for their enemies, which naturally must produce, and which al- 
ready have produced, such wonderful effects. 

Introduce family distinctions and priniogenitureship, and all 
these blessings vanish at once. It would not take ten years after 
that to fill your country with sinecure placemen and pensioners, 
political spies and informers, hired writers, fraudulent and servile 
domestics and labourers, and paupers too base to be numbered 
amongst them. If yoa want an instance of the lengths to which 
a thirst after titles and family distinctions will lead men, look at 
Napoleon. See that wonderful man ; that matchless soldier ; that 
wise lawgiver ; the brave, the generous, the acute, the experien- 
ced Napoleon; see him, even to the very last moment of his pow- 
er ; and when he knew that that power was just departing, in all 
human probability forever from his grasp, still clinging to his un- 
fortunate desire to have royal descendants. There can be no 
question that it was this desire, and the acts which it produced, 
that finally have led the kings and their subsidized armies to Paris. 
When the French people had been used to an emperor for some 
years, they were no longer ashamed to think of receiving a king. 
The emperor, by moulding the republic into an empire, prepared 
it to become a kingdom. This he manifestly did for the sake of 
family; from that accursed motive of vanity, which has ruined 
the reputation of so many really great men, and has plunged so 
many nations into misery. Guard against the indulgence of it in 
your country, I beseech you. You are, happily, free from titles 
and family distinctions. Make it a rule to look upon every one as 
an enemy of the country, who makes the smallest attempt to 
introduce them ; and thus will you keep the scourge from 
amongst you. 

Another evil for you to guard against, is, any increase in the 
power of the priesthood. If you look at Europe, you will see 
the amount of the evils which this power has produced. The 
struggle now in France is, in fact, between the priesthood and 
freedom of thought. If the enemies of France do not restore the 
power of the priesthood, they will do nothing at all, at least to- 
wards the accomplishment of their great object : that is, the era- 
dicating of what they call the jacobin system : whenever the 
priesthood have power, that power is sure to be employed on the 
side of what is called " regular government ;" that is, the keep- 
ing of men in order by coercive means. It is very odd, but the 
fact is so, that even you find priests of all denominations pull 
together in this way, though they are daily and hourly accusing 
each other of teaching false doctrine. Each tells you that it is 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 3Gb 

sinful not to believe in what he teaches, while he tells you that 
all other sorts of priests are to be listened to also, though all those 
others tell you that he is in the wrong. How can you account 
for the wonderful zeal of the protestaut clergy of Europe to re- 
store the pope and catholic religion ? Does not this zeal put the 
subject in a light so clear as to make it impossible longer to misun- 
derstand it? Does it not show, that priests of all denominations, 
though they pronounce the creed of each other to be damnable, 
make common cause as towards the people ? Does it not show, 
that they are all on the side of " strong government ? v , There- 
fore, take care to give them no means of possessing an influence 
in your political affairs. 

By the same conveyance, I received a printed copy of propo- 
sals for republishing, in an octavo volume, by Messrs. Bbldem 
and Co. of New-York, my Letters on the late War. This also, 
has, as may be supposed, given me great pleasure. It is another 
striking instance of the great power of the press ; and it is a 
proof to me, that my labours are not thrown away. It is another 
motive to industry. When, after long tugging against wind and 
tide, the almost exhausted and despairing mariner sees his little 
bark beginning to make ahead, courage returns to his heart, and 
strength to his arms ; he makes new and greater exertions ; and, 
finally, he overcomes all obstacles. So, I hope, it will be with me. 
I now see that I have forced great and valuable truths amongst 
the millions of freemen who inhabit America, as well as amongst 
my own countrymen. I feel pride, which I cannot, and which I 
do not wish to disguise, when I reflect, that what 1 write in this 
little village, is, in a few weeks afterwards, read by many mil- 
lions of people here, and in another hemisphere, and those, too, 
the most enlightened of mankind. I must be, and I am, proud 
to see these essays of mine, written, sometimes, in the space of 
a day, and amidst cares innumerable, and pursuits that demand 
and receive my attention from daylight to dark, thought worthy 
of being moulded into pamphlets and books. And I his gives me 
the greater pleasure, when I reflect, that no advertisements, no 
puffs nor reviews, that no extraneous aid of any sort, has ever 
been resorted to by me ; but that my essays, unsupported, and 
unprotected, have been sent forth to find their way throughout the 
world. 

In conclusion, geutlemen, I shall announce, through this chan- 
nel, my intention to put into execution, a measure which I have 
long had in view, which 1 am certain would be greatly beneficial 
to the people of America, which I had actually begun while in 
prison, and which was laid aside on account of the war. I have 
perceived, from several American writings on agriculture, and es- 
pecially from Mr. Livingston's work on sheep ; and, indeed, I 
• know the fact from my own observation, that your long winters 



366 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

and late springs are a great impediment to the keeping of so 
large numbers of all sorts of animals which afford sustenance to 
man, and especially of sheep, as might otherwise be reared and 
maintained. I am of opinion that it is in my power to teach you, 
speaking always from my own knowledge and actual experience, 
how to remedy the defect of a want of abundance of suitable 
food for all such animals during these seasons. I mean to say, 
that if any farmer, who now farms in the old way, as I saw it in 
Pennsylvania, will follow my instructions, he will be entbled, with 
scarcely any additional capital or expense, to double the quantity 
of live stock upon his farm. A boot, having this object in view, 
is now preparing by my eldest son, and will be sent to be pub- 
lished iu Philadelphia, in the month of November next. 1 mean 
the manuscript will go hence, in, or before that month 

With these views, gentlemen, and not with the views of our 
agricultural societies, whose minds seem, in general, to partake 
essentially of the earth, whence they take their appellation, I 
propose to communicate the intended instructions on the culture 
and preservation of winter and spring food for cattle and sheep ; 
and if the communication should be attended with success, it 
will always be a gratification to me to reflect, that it will be justly 
thought to have arisen, in some degree, or, at least, to have been 
accelerated by the gratitude which has been excited by your 
obliging and public spirited letter. 

I cannot, even here, conclude, without congratulating you most 
cordially on the defeat of the Alger ines by the gallant Decatur 
and his no less gallant companions. Even in this your republic 
has given a blow io tyrants in gen grab Even in this your ex- 
ample is of great weight. Even in this does the world see a proof 
of those sound and just principles, which are the basis of your 
political institutions. To free the captive from the lash of bar- 
barians; to restrain them from future cruelties; to punish them 
for paat torments inflicted on the innocent; to make the sea the 
safe highway of nations; to avenge the insults and the violences 
committed against freemen, these are motives of war worthy of 
America. A Louis, king of France, acquired the title of 
SAINT Louis, becf^se, at the instigation of the pope and the 
priests, he fought against these same Algerines to make them 
change their religion. Your ground of war is very different : it 
is that of a free and enlightened people, drawing the 3Word in the 
cause of unequivocal justice and humanity. Our newspapers, 
and so will it be with the reviews and magazines, (except the 
Monthly Magazine,) are very dry and shy upon this subject. 
They notice the account of your victory, but they do it in a 
way which clearly shows that they are very sorry for it They 
do not say this in so many words ; but that this is their feeling i» 
manifest. The truth is, they feel it to be a blow against tyranny 



1» 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 367 

generally ; and they also smell danger, 1 hough distant, in the 
encouragement which it will certainly give to the growth of your 
navi/y which, to them and their supporters, is the most hideous of 
all ideas. They think, and, indeed, they say, that France will 
now be crippled for a < entvry ; and I shall not be at all surprised, 
if they soon begin to inculcate the necessity of crippling you for 
a like season. I will take care to convey to you an account of 
their proceedings; and, once for all, let me beseech you most 
earnestly TO READ THIS ACCOUNT WITH ATTEN- 
TION. 

Be you united, however, and you have nothing- to fear. No 
compromise with Jraitors ; no compromise with men who clearly 
alia at the subversion of your freedom; but moderation towards 
all who honestly differ in opinion. Mutual concession there must 
be among those who honestly differ, or your country will be 
divided and enslaved. Let not a consciousness of your valour 
lull you into a false security. You are all armed, can all shoot, 
are all willing to fight ; but there wants organization. You 
want adopted, and that, too, directly, the plan of Majcr Cart 
ivright, detailed ina little work called "England's iEds 
that is, the means of effectually defending the country without a 
standing army. I wish this work was in the hands of your 
governors and president. Once organized according to the plan 
of that work, you might set all the world at defiance ; without 
such organization the time may come when your country will be 
in imminent danger. 

The duty of every free man, and his very first duty, is to 
prepare himself for the defence of his freedom. To say that he 
is always ready to fight in that defence to his last breath is not 
enough. Actually to be ready to do this is still short of the 
mark. He should not only be ready and willing so to fight, but 
he should be able to fight, to exert his courage and patriotism to 
the greatest possible advantage. And this is not to be accom- 
plished without organization; without constant aitention to this 
great duty ; without cheerful submission to regulations agreed 
on; without an ever-active vigilance ; without, in short, making all 
private concerns give way to this paramount consideration. This 
is the way to preclude the necessity of a standing army, with al! 
its accompaniments of heavy taxes, dissolute manners, and in- 
sidious distinctions ; this is the way to live, in safety, at peace 
with all the world ; this is the way, and the only way, to preserve 
inviolate your political institutions, to prevent the prodigious in- 
crease of your population and your wealth from endangering your 
liberties, and to hand down to posterity that happiness and 
freedom, that ease and plenty, which you have received from th« 
hands of your wise and gallant fathers. 



36B Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

With these reflections deeply impressed upon my mind ; with 
an anxious desire that they may awaken attention in your country; 
with sincere wishes for the happiness of your country in general, 
and of yourselves in particular, 

I am, gentlemen, your most obedient servant, 

William Cobbett. 

Botley, July 16, 1815, 



TYTHES. 

■ 

The article which I have given below with this title, taken from 
the Cork I hronicle, I hope my friends in America will read with 
attention. It shows them what they are to expect if their Cos- 
sai k Priesthood should succeed in their attempts to establish a 
dominant church. Not only will they exact a tenth of their corn, 
and their cattle, which grow and are fed in the fields, but their 
fruit, their apples, their pears, their plumbs, and all those choice 
and delicious products which constitute the kitchen garden, and 
are so consoling to the heart of man, will be ty thed by these rapa- 
cious fiends, who, as was the case in France before the revolution, 
had the impudence there to assert, that the earth and its fulness 
is their heritage, and that the people, over which they had assum- 
ed a sway, were created merely to be fleeced by them. It is for 
this, and this only, that the priesthood in America are exerting 
themselves to overthrow the republican government They feel, 
that under a frugal government, which is careful to teach every 
man his duty in society, without cailing in the aid of spiritual 
teachers, there is no chance of their being able to establish an em- 
pire over the mind. This, the foundation of all their power, being 
unattainable, their grand object is to bring into discredit that sys- 
tem which presents so formidable a barrier to their encroach- 
ments. 

From the Cork Chronicle. 

Bishop of Cloyne's Court. — Our readers may recollect that 
we called their attention some time since to the subject of certain 
citations issued from this court at the buit of the Rev. Thomas 
Carson, Rector of Kilmahon, for the recovery of tythe of green 
clover, apples, pears, plumbs, and cherries, which grew in a kit- 
chen garden. On Tuesday last, the court was crowded to excess, 
principally a very respectable number of gentlemen, assembled to 
witness the proceedings. However, upon reading the citation, it 
was discovered that it was erroneously filled, so that the claim of 
the Rev. Pastor wa3 dismissed, after going through part of the 



Letters of William Cobbell, Esq. 369 

* 

evidence. We have been informed that the vicar general took 
this opportunity of censuring, in very strong and energetic language, 
such novel modes of proceeding as the present, and expressed 
his hope that this would be the last time he should witness claims 
of this nature brought info his court. However, we have been 
informed that the Rev. Mr. Carson declared in open court his in- 
tention of recommencing the suit. It was brought against Win. 
Abbott, Esq. of Ballymalee, a young gentleman connected with 
the most respectable families of the society of friendss throughout 
the country, and from whose well-cultivated farm, of 133 acres, the 
Rev. Pastor requires a considerable yearly income in tythe. This 
gentleman has been remarkable for his very kind attention to a 
widowed mother, and a number of brothers and sisters, who were 
left a burthen upon him at a very early period of life. The same 
Rev. Gentleman was dismissed upon two other citations on the same 
day, one of which was for the tythe of a small quantity of flax 
which grew in a head land of a cornfield, the tythe of which had 
been duly paid. 



To the people of all parties in the United Slates of America— *■ 
on the necessity of their being prepared for the defence of 
their country. 

Before this reaches you, you will have heard of the great events 
which have taken place in Europe. Those events, if you se- 
rio'Joly iook at them, will convince you that it is high time for you 
to betake yourselves to the means of making your country a dura- 
ble asylum tor the oppressed of all nations ; a safe abode of free- 
dom. This is in no way to be done, but by arming yourselves ; 
by keeping yourselves constantly armed ; by being, at all times, 
ready to enter the field of battle ; and this state of preparation is 
to be effected only by wise organisation. 

If you look into our newspapers of a fortnight past, you will see, 
that they have now openly and unreservedly promulgated princi- 
ples, according to which your country might be laudably invaded, 
your cities laid in ashes, your women violated, yourselves robbed 
and murdered, even in the hour of peace. You will see, that they 
recommend the perpetual imprisonment, or the murder of Napo- 
leon, who has given himself up as a prisoner of war, whose victo- 
ries were never stained by cruelty or insult to the captive, and to 
whose clemency so many old reigning families owe the preserva- 
tion of that power, under the combination of which he has, at last, 
fallen. You will see, that they recommend the murder of every 
man who has distinguished himself by his exertions against the 

47 



370 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

horrible feudal and ecclesiastical tyranny formerly existing in 
France. You will see, that they almost literally thirst for the 
blood of every man in France, who has done, or who is suspected 
of wishing to do, any thing to preserve the liberties of the French 
nation. You will see that, now that Napoleon is wholly unable to 
act against the kings of Europe, these men are directing their ma- 
lice against all that they think likely to oppose their views of uni- 
versal oppression. You will see that, as the king of France 
does not appear disposed to shed blood, and to strip the people 
almost of their very skins, these men are urging the allies to take 
the work into their own hands. You will see, in short, that they 
liave now undisguisedly avowed, that England and Europe can 
never be safe, while one particle of freedom is left in France, 
while any thing but misery and slavery are left in that populous 
and extensive country. 

We are not to believe it possible that these savage, these mur- 
derous recommendations, will be followed ; nor, if followed, are we 
to believe, that the wishes of these fiends in human shape would 
be accomplished. We are not to believe it possible, that any 
king, or any minister, will entertain the wish, much less attempt 
the deed, of making neighbouring, or rival, nations wretched "for 
a century" lest their growth and prosperity should endanger his 
power and means of living in splendour. We are not to believe 
it possible, for instance, that any king, or minister, of England, will 
ever entertain the horrid wish of " putting you back for a centu- 
ry" that you may not be able to cope with him. But, while you 
actually see that there are public writers, even in this country, 
who not only openly avow such wishes, and that, too, with respect 
to America, as well as with respect to France, ought you not to 
think it possible, that, in some part or other of the world, sooner 
or later, the principles of these men may possess the minds of 
those who may be able to endeavour, at least, to put them into 
executiou ? 

These writers are men of great weight in the world. You 
have seen the numerousninstances in which they appear to have 
been the dictators of faction in mighty affairs. Their writings 
are never to be despised. They are always to be attended to; 
and I beseech you to attend to t he m. They hate you mortally, 
chiefly because you are really free, and because you exhibit to 
the world the great example of order, tranquillity, prosperity un- 
paralleled, under a government of such mildness and cheapness. 
They are men of excellent memories : revenge is never extin- 
guished in their breasts; from the same motive that they now re- 
commend the murder of the great and generous conqueror of the 
continent of Europe, they would, if they had the power, tear your 
bodies to pieces. Be you assured, that these men will die with- 
out having felt one single moment of solid satisfaction, unless they 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 371 

see your political institutions destroyed, your eountry made a 
heap of ruins, and yourselves reduced to the most degrading sla- 
very. 

While you know that such passions are existing in the world ; 
while you see that the human mind may be so brutalized, so cor- 
rupted, and so hardened against the feelings which nature inspires, 
it becomes you to guard your liberties and your lives ; to begin 
betimes to prepare for their protection against the acts to which 
such passions may finally lead. And let not any party amongst 
you suppose, that these men, if they could stir up an enemy against 
you, would make any exceptions in favour of that parti/. Until 
they saw half a million of the allies in France they were applauding 
the royalists, and urging them on to cut the throats of their re- 
publican countrymen. But now they make no distinction. It ia 
now France that is to be punished, it is now, not Napoleon, not 
the jacobins; it is France that is to be "put back for a century.'* 
Only think, for a moment, of the means that must be used to ac- 
complish such a purpose. Only think of the pillaging, the mur- 
ders, the acts of devastation, which are necessary even to afford 
a chance of effecting such an end. Only think of the rancour, 
the bloody mindedness, that must have engendered such an idea. 
These men now applaud the federalists, whom they call the 
" sound part of the people." But if they could urge any power 
to invade you, the federalists would soon find, as the royalists in 
France now do, that it is against the whole country, against the 
prosperity and happiness of the whole nation, that their hatred 
is directed. Now and then, when thrown off their guard by some 
particular cause of exasperation, they confound, in their abuse, 
both parties under the name of " the Americans ;" and I have 
been not a little amused at reading, in a Boston federal paper, se- 
rious, but very plaintive, remonstrances upon this score, stating, 
" that it is unjust in these, our writers, to confound the different 
descriptions of Americans thus ; that they ought to discriminate ; 
that they are right in venting their hatred against the democrats ; 
but that they should recollect that the federalists are a very 
good and respectable sort of people, lovers of order and religion, 
and that, besides, they actually fight the battles of these writers 
in America." Let these malignant men only be able to stir up 
the means of doing you mischief, and the authors of these humble 
wailings will soon see that their hatred, like the bullet, is no re- 
specter of parties or persons. Before the allies were in France, 
they told us that all the " sound part of the community'' (keep 
this phrase in mind) were decidedly in favour of the king, and es- 
pecially the "good and respectable Bourgoisie." But now they 
announce to us, with delight, the sums of money and the masses 
of food and drink which, as they tell us, the allies are compelling 
the " sound" as well as unsound to pry. They tell us, with par- 



JJf 2 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

ticular satisfaction, that the " honest old marshal Blucher" is 
quartering his soldiers upon the people of Paris ; that is, upon the 
"good and respectable Bourgoisie," who were so hearty and faith- 
fid in the cause of the king. This is the treatment they approve 
of as to the royalists in France ; this is the way in which they 
turn round upon their friends there. And would they not do the 
same towards their /muds in America ? 

I will here insert a passage from the Times newspaper, and 
one from the Courier, under the date of the 28th July, 1815, 
in order to give you a specimen of the views of our leading pub- 
lic prints. And, again and again, I beseech you to mark well 
their conduct: for I tell you, as, indeed, you must know, that 
they are uot singular in their way of thinking. We will first 
hear the Courier : 

" We have been given to understand that the conditions which 
the allied sovereigns think it necessary to dictate to France in her 
twice captured capital, will be made known in a few days. One 
of the French papers on Monday announces that the treaty of 
Paris is to be maintained ; that of course the territory of France 
remains untouched ; that there are to be contributions imposed for 
the expenses of the war, all participation in which, it is under- 
stood, have been renounced by two of the powers ; (we trust we 
are not one ;) that the allied troops will soon retire, except about 
150,000 Russians, who will evacuate the country by '25,000 at 
a time, in proportion as the French army becomes reorganized ; 
that the emperor of Austria has declared, that wishing to avoid 
all cause of jealousy or umbrage, he will not leave a single Aus- 
trian corps in France. The Journalist theu concludes, with com- 
pliments to the magnanimity of the allied powers. Magnanimity ! 
call it rather folly ; but we dp not, and cannot believe tdem to 
be capable of throwing away, in this manner, the advantages 
they have gained, and of sacrificing their duty to their subjects. 
Leave the French territory as it was ! and thus leave her the 
power to disturb again the repose of Europe ! Endanger Belgium ! 
For will any man say she can be secure whilst France keeps her 
northern fortresses? The paragraph, therefore, in the Paris 
Journal cannot be correct. The following arrangement, we hear, 
will be found to be nearer the truth. The immediate disbanding 
of the army of the Loire by the king; an ordinance to that effect 
may be expected in a day or two. Why not extend the decree 
to the other armies of France ? The raising another army com- 
prised of men who have proved their fidelity to the king. The 
delivery en depot to the allies of the three strongest fortresses till 
this new army is raised and ready to act. Eight millions of francs 
as an indemnification to the allies of their expenses. (800 mil- 
lions would not indemnify them.) The punishment of the prin- 
cipal offenders to be left to the prudence of the king. If such 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 37X 

be the principal outlines of the new arrangement, we can only 
say that they will be any thing but satisfactory. A new army 
may be faithful and loyal to the king, and the king may be paci- 
fically inclined ; but suppose he should not ; suppose his succes- 
sor should not ,• suppose he should be forced to follow the war- 
like impulse of the nation. The real, wise, and safe policy, is, 
to reduce the power of France ; that is the only way to prevent 
her from disturbing the peace of Europe. It is with nations as 
with individuals. Who of US, after being HUMBLED BY 
AN ENEMY, IS NOT ANXIOUS TO BE REVENG- 
ED OF THAT EN EM Y? We should insist upon the sur- 
render, or, at least, the rasing, all the northern fortresses of 
France; we should make her give up the spoliations of Lotiis 
XVI. Why not bestow Lorraine upon Austria, and Alsace 
upon Prussia ? Lastly, every one of her pictures and statues 
should be removed.^ 

Pray, mark well the words which I have put in large capitals. 
Mark the words : " who of us, after being humbled by an enemy, 
is not anxious to be revenged of that enemy ?" Mark these words, 
write them, engrave them in your minds ; never lose sight of 
them for a moment. They speak to you, and that, too, with a 
voice of thunder. But, to turn to France. You see, now, they 
are for acting as if the king, ay, as if the Bourbon king was 
their enemy. He was every thing that was good, till the allies 
got possession of the capital, many of the fortresses,, and a large 
part of the territory of France; before that time, these men only 
wanted to get rid of Napoleon, that disturber of Europe ; but 
the moment France was in their hands, they could no longer trust 
even the king. They now, as you see, wish to dismember, and 
cripple, and even destroy France. They now cry for the de- 
struction of the power, not of any men, or any party, but the 
power of France herself. 

Let us now hear the editor of the Times of the same date. 
After calling upon the government to murder Napoleon ; after 
asserting, that, if he be not publicly put to death, Despard was 
■murdered, he proceeds thus : 

" Is it considered what effect the knowledge of his being in 
existence must necessarily have on the disaffected in every part 
of Europe ? They will think, and think with truth, that the al- 
lied sovereigns are afraid to touch the life of a man who has so 
many adherents and admirers. This, of course, will increase 
the number of his adherents, and the fervour of their admiration. 
If in the depth of his degradation, their idol can inspire respect ; 
if the cultivators of religion, and virtue, and loyalty, are forced 
to bow down before the splendour of his crimes, even when un- 
der eclipse, what must they do at the happy moment, when he 
bursts forth again from behind the cloud ; a moment towards 



374 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

which his followers will look with more devout anxiety than the 
Indian does to the first, dawning of a day, marked by astrology 
as the most fortunate of his life. Indeed, it must be granted, that 
the extraordinary escapes which this man has had from the hands 
of justice, are well calculated to create a kind of superstition in 
the minds of those who have been already dazzled by his fame. 
He trusts himself to those whom he has most injured, as Daniel 
braved the fury of the lions, or as the three brethren walked 
through tbe fiery furnace : and our folly, our cowardice, works 
the miracle of his safety ! As long as he lives, therefore, treason 
and rebellion must be everywhere at work. His escape, his 
release, his reappearance must be constantly expected. Instead 
of an infamous criminal, he will be considered as an injured 
prince, unjustly kept from the embraces and salutations of a 
longing people ; and when at last he breaks prison, (which sooner 
or later he undoubtedy will do.) his return will be more triumph- 
ant, and his power more firmly consolidated than ever. He is 
to be guarded by an English regiment. But the whole regiment 
is not always on guard ; is it itnagined that an English sentinel 
alone, can neither be bribed nor eluded ? In the English army, 
too, it may be asked, whether there are none of those weak and 
unreflecting men, who admire daring successful crime? To 
speak plainly, is it not a known fact, that many even of the 
English officers are personal admirers of Napoleon Buona* 
parte? Most of these young gentlemen (for it is of the younger 
sort that I speak) have no better reading than the Morning Chro- 
nicle, or the Edinburgh Review, or some other worthless pro- 
duction, in which this monster is usually described as the first of 
heroes, the great captain of the age, &c. It is no wonder that 
such studies should dazzle their imagination, and confound their 
moral sense ; and we may be assured, that so long as Napoleon 
Buonaparte lives, this very serious evil will go on increasing." 

Now, can you suppose that" a monster like this writer, who 
would commit a deliberate murder in revenge on a man for being 
an object of admiration, would not, if he could, gladly cut all 
your throats, men, women, and children ? The fears that the 
wretch feels and describes are a proof of the falsehoods of his 
accusation ; for if Napoleon's deeds were such as he asserts them 
to have been, what reason can there be to take away his life, lest 
so large a part of mankind should still feel an interest in his fate ? 
He would have Napoleon murdered, not because he has done that 
which has made him an object of hatred and contempt, but be- 
cause he has done that which has made him an object of love 
and admiration. Having thus disposed of Napoleon, he comes to 
the French army, the whole of whom also he seems to wish to 
see disposed of in the same bloody way. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq^ 375 

«' The first point," says he, * and without which all others 
would be nugatory, is, that the army of the Loire, whatever may 
be the terms on which the king may be disposed to accept of 
its submission, shall be disbanded ; an intimation to that effect 
will, we have some reason to suppose, be published in a day or 
two. If the troops give up their arms, disperse, and retire, as they 
will De required to do, their past rebellion, atrocious as it has 
been, will be overlooked ; but should they obstinately persevere 
in their criminal conduct, we suppose that they themselves can 
hardly wish to be forgiven; a preponderating force will be sent 
against them. Indeed, that this army, got together by treason, 
led by the traitor himself into the field, and there defeated, should 
think it possible f uat it can coexist with any regular and legal 
government, is incredible. Our great doubt as to the effectual 
execution of this article, results from the character and habits of 
the men ; they are chiefly without Iwmes, inured only to camps, 
garrisons, battles, and familiar with no other hopes than such as 
are incident to those courses of life, plunder, advancement, or 
whai they term glory ; so that it is next to impossible that suck 
men should ever learn to limit themselves to the sober expecta- 
tions of TR AN QXJIL LIFE." 

So that, if these men may attempt to prevent the absolute and 
entire conquest of their country, they are not to expect to avoid 
being hanged ! and, if they lay down their arms, and are willing to 
disperse, they " have no homes," and it is impossible, or next to 
impossible, that they should ever return to tranquil life. At 
once ruffian and hypocrite ! He knows well that if that army 
could be completely annihilated, France would have no chance 
of salvation. But let me beseech you to recollect what these 
men formerly said about the persons composing this same army. 

While Napoleon was leading this army to victory; while this 
army was following him over Europe, these writers bewailed their 
fate. They were then poor, unhappy youths, dragged from the 
firesides of their fond and respectable parents, tied hand and foot, 
and thus carried to the army, and compelled to fight. Oh ! how 
these writers " pitied" them and their parents ! Ay, that they 
did, from the bottom of their souls ! Vile hypocrites, and they 
now call these same persons robbers. They say they are " with* 
out homes" and recommend the massacre of them, it being next 
to impossible that they should return to tranquil life. 

And do your federalists imagine, that they would be put in 
possession of power, if these men could stir up a conquering ene- 
my against you upon their principles ? If once they saw your 
country overrun, your government put to the rout, they would 
that very moment talk of the whole of you in * lump. They 
would call every thing folly, "criminal weakness" short of the 
utter ruin of your country. Nay, have you not already had a 



376 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

specimen of their moderation ? Before the victories over Napo- 
leon, last year, they always talked of " the sound part" of you* 
They only wished to defend our rights, and to live upon good 
terms with you. They said that the " sound part of the peo- 
ple" were "with them ; and that the war party were a French 
faction, who hated England because she was the great " bulwark 
of relic-ion." Do you remember how they changed their tone, all 
in a moment, when they heard of the fall of Napoleon ? Do 
you remember that they then said that no peace could be made 
with James Madison ; that no treaty ought to be signed, ex- 
cept at the head- quarters of the English army in the heart of 
the United States ? Do you remember how soon they dropped 
all distinctions in their invectives, and called for the flogging of 
" the Americans ?" Do you remember that they insisted, that 
no peace should be made with you, until your political institu- 
tions had been subverted, until your civil and political state had 
been destroyed ; until that " mischievous example of successful 
Democraticai. Rebellion" had been done away? Until 
this was effected, they said that there could be no safely for the 
regular governments of the civilized world. Not a word did they 
then say about the sound part of the community ; not a word 
about the federalists ; not a word about "the good people in 
the eastern states ;" not a word about Mr. Otis or the other 
Misters, whom they used to praise. They looked upon the con- 
quest of your country as sure ; and they were preparing for call- 
ing aloud for the " punishment" of you all. It was the " mis- 
chievous example of the success of democratic rebellion" that 
they wished to destroy. And were not the federalists democratic 
rebels, as well as the rest ? All your presidents, and all your 
governors, were, according to these men's views of the matter, 
" democratic rebels." What reason, then, could they have to 
suppose, that they were, by these writers, intended to be spared 
any more than the rest of the people ? In all their praises of 
" the sound part of the people," they were actuated by the de- 
sire of obtaining the aid of the federalists in rendering your ruin 
more certain and more complete. 

Two months have not passed over our heads since these wri- 
ters were applauding the sending of arms and ammunition to the 
royalists of La Vendee, whom they called brave, faithful, reli- 
gious, and whom they urged on to exterminate the jacobins, as 
they called them, who were opposed to the Bourbons. Now, be- 
cause the Vendeans do not seem to relish the total conquest, the 
dismemberment, and utter ruin of their country by foreign armies, 
they confound them with the army of Marshal Davoust ; they 
lump them aiong with the other parties ; and even accuse them 
of ingratitude ! They are called ungrateful to England, be- 
cause the j do not appear inclined to aid in the despoiling even 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq, 377 

the king of his territories ; even that king to fight for whom they 
received their arms and ammunition ! But what is this more than 
Ihey had before done with regard to your federalists I When 
they saw notices of the meeting of the convention at Hartford, 
they chuckled with delight ; they cheered them on ; they ap- 
plauded the conduct of the promoters. But when the conven- 
tion broke up, with merely agreeing to an application to be made 
to the several states to join them in demanding a reform of the 
federal constitution, our writers turned round upon them with 
reproaches of all sorts. " What !" said the Times newspaper, 
" is THAT ALL ? We expected a division of the. union to be 
declared at once ; or, at least, the impeachment of Madison and 
his associates. These conventionalists are men of no vigour. 
Why do they not, like the brave Vendeans, take up arms and 
co-operate with our naval and military commanders ? This 
was what we expected : or, at the very least, we expected the 
neutrality of the New-England states to be declared, As things 
now stand, these states ought no longer to experience our for- 
bearance, seeing the ingratitude with which our past forbearance 
has been repaid." 

Was there ever impudence like this heard of before? Is not 
this insulting the feelings of mankind? And what humiliation 
must it have been to Mr. Otis and others to have been objects of 
such men's praise ? I do not impute to the Hartford convention 
the base design of aiding in the subjugation of the country, and in 
the destruction of freedom amongst men ; but if we take the then 
circumstances of America into view, it is impossible to deny that 
they intended so to embarrass the general government as to com- 
pel it to do what would have been disgraceful, at least, to their 
country, in order to sink their rivals, and raise themselves upon 
their ruin, and this was, to say the least of it, carrying party spi- 
rit to an unwarrantable length. There is no doubt in my mind, nor 
in that of any man of information that I have ever conversed with 
on the subject, that it was the encouragement held out by the con- 
duct of men in the eastern states which prolonged the war after 
the peace of Paris ; and, indeed, it was that encouragement which, 
more than any thing else, produced the zoar. I hope that those 
men will now take warning. That they, like the Vendeans, will 
now see, that the praises bestowed on them by our writers are only 
upon the presumption, that they are ready to cut the throats 
of their countrymen, and to aid in the subjugation of their 
country. 

If I were asked why these writers of ours should be such impla- 
cable enemies to the freedom and happiness of mankind ; why they 
should desire to stir up war, internal strife, and all manner of evils 
against every nation where freedom is enjoyed, I might answer, 
that I am not bound to show the cause of their abominable wishes, 

48 



37 S Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

having so clearly shown that they have those wishes. But the 
cause appears to be this: thev see, they feel, thai the weight of 
the taxes in England, joined to other causes, rnus';, if the world be 
left in quiet for years, produce a great degree of decline in this 
country. These men have, for many years, been bawlers for war. 
They now tell us that the war has been crowned with glorious 
success j but they foresee that peace to us will be not what peace 
usually has been. Tbey saw that the peace of Paris, instead of 
crowding our ports with ships and goods, and filling our streets} 
with the bustle of trade, produced a calm, a stillness, as to trade, 
truly gloomy. They saw that our own people flocked to France 
for comfortable living. They saw enterprising tradesmen and 
manufacturers flocking to America. They saw the houses in and 
near London untenanted. They everywhere heard of the decay 
of trade, and of ruined farmers. They saw that without a law to 
raise the price of corn, the taxes could not be paid by either land- 
lord or tenant. They saw, in short, that the war had created the 
cause of impossibility to live in peace ; while France on one side, 
and America on the other, held forth the temptations of liberty 
and abundance. And they saw, which, observe, was not the 
smallest object of their terror, that the landlords and tenants, in 
almost every part of the country, complained of the hardship of 
tythes, and pointed out the example of France, where tythes had 
been abolished. They know that we have about forty five mil- 
lions of pounds, or 180 millions of dollars, a. YEAR, to pay in 
taxes for ever, being the interest of the debt, instead o( the nine 
millions ot pounds, or 38 millions of dollars, which we had to f)ay 
on this account before the war. They see, that in consequence 
of the increase of industry produced in France by the revolution, 
and of our burdens produced by the war, the French are able to 
sell in our markets at much less than half the price that we must 
sell at, or must leave the taxes unpaid. They see all these things. 
They are seized with a panic, that the " tight little island" will 
become as desert as that on which Captain Lake put the poor 
fellow Jeffries, who was saved by the kindness of one of your 
countrymen ; and, in the rage, inspired by their forebodings, they 
would, if they could, render every other country too miserable for 
man to live in. They do not recommend the reducing of the 
ariwf to what it was before the war. They know that this would 
not answer their purpose. They might recommend the reduction 
of the navy ; but, then, you stare them in the face. The civil 
list is indispensable. They would recommend to wipe off the 
debt ; but, then, the whole system crumbles to atoms. Their last 
resource is, the hope, by their writings, to stir up the means of 
making other nations still more wretched. 

The state of this country, as regards the means of enjoying hap- 
piness, may be pretty correctly estimated by this one fact ; nam p 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 379 

ly, that a notice has been given, in the house of commons, that a 
measure will be proposed, early in the next session, to lay a tax 
upon the property of all persons who shall go to reside out 
of the king's dominions, from which tax those residing in them 
shall be exempt. I do not believe it likely for such a law to pass ; 
but, after what we have seen, I do not pronounce it to be impossi- 
ble. At any rate, the idea has been seriously enough entertained 
to produce its mention in parliament. Reflect, then, for a moment, 
on the means which must be used in order to assess such a tax ; 
reflect on the immediate superintendance which it would give the 
government over the person of every man of property: reflect 
on the vassal-like degradation to which it would reduce us : re- 
flect on the passions which such a state of restraint would engen- 
der ; and, then, form to yourselves an idea of the de^p-riion 
which must have been the parent of such a proposition. Tae 
truth is, that the amount ot the taxes is now so great, that all but 
the immense fortunes are sinking under the weight ; and tiiat, too, 
with a rapidity that is quite astonishing. The necessities of the 
government require so large a part of every man's income and 
earnings, that numbers are seeking the means of escaping from the 
demand. Taxes, when excessive, must create paupers, because 
they go on pressing the whole of a people downwards : and, of 
course, those who are but just above the poor list, are forced into 
it. It has lately been stated in parliament, and that, too, by 
Georgk Rose, that the beggars, the common beggars in the me- 
tropolis alone, have increased to thirty thousand ! Equal to near- 
ly half the whole population of Philadelphia, when I lived in 
it. This fact appears to have been stated by George Rose, 
as introductory to a measure for putting a stop to the evil. 

But how ? Would he send the beggars to the country ? We 
are overstocked already. Observe, trifling as is this village, 
scarcely a day passes without bringing one, and generally more, 
beggars to my door. The vagrant act warrants us in taking 
them before a justice, and having them punished. But who will 
take the trouble, even if he wishes to do it ? Thus are they left 
to wander about. They swarm over the country like the vermin 
upon their own bodies ; and are produced by causes nearly simi- 
lar. I have here stated two striking facts ; my authority is the 
parliament itself. I state them here, in the face of the country, 
and I thus invite contradiction if that be possible. Let me, in 
this place, observe, however, that I do not look upon myself as 
bound to refrain from making use of the press of America, 
when I shall think that I ought to siate truths which I dare not 
stale here; but I never will send to that press, any thing, which 
even a federalist will not say, that I ought to be permit-ted to pub- 
lish in any part of the world. I write with the strung desire of 
its being read* J see several millions of readers on the other side 



380 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

of the Atlantic. I know many facts, many arguments occur to 
me, which I am anxious to convey to the whole world if possi- 
ble ; and if I am forbidden, under enormous pains and penalties, to 
convey them through the press of this country, is there any rea- 
son why I should not convey them through the press of a country, 
where the prohibition does not exist, and where any one is at 
liberty to contradict, or to canvass, all I may say ? The French 
and English writers, who used to have their works published at 
the Hague, at Amsterdam, at Geneva, or elsewhere abroad, 
were never regarded as guilty of foul play ; but, on the contrary, 
were, by every lover of truth, applauded for the zeal which urg- 
ed them to resort to this method of overcoming the obstacles to 
its promulgation. 

To return now to the cause of the malicious efforts of the wri- 
ters of whom I have so often spoken, and (o draw your attention 
to which efforts, is the principal object of this address; this 
cause appears to me to be the apprehensions which the present 
slate of England excites, joined to a hatred of the very name of 
liberty and revolution, contracted by these illiberal men ever 
since they heard them associated with the name of Frenchman, 
This, I am well convinced, is the real cause of their rancour 
against France, and America, both of which, as they constantly 
show, they would gladly see utterly annihilated. Whether there 
be OTHER PERSONS, who entertain the same apprehensions 
and wishes, I must leave you to conjecture. But I know that they 
do, because they discover the fact by their words. They have 
said that America must be put back for a century. They have 
called the attention of the government to the growth of your na- 
vy. They have said that, if it be not strangled in its birth, it 
will be dangerous. 

They actually proposed to make you give up all your ships of 
war, to stipulate never to build another, and never more to cast 
a cannon or a ball. 

You will laugh at this ; but I beg you not to laugh at it ; or, 
at least, to do something else besides laugh. In the whole extent 
of the world, it may happen, that their principles may find the 
means to work up some power to assail you. Therefore, I say, 
fee o»i your guard. Peace is what you ought to desire ; but it is 
peace accompanied with safety. To preserve peace you must 
always be well prepared for your defence, at least. The navy 
you will not neglect. Its increase is not dangerous to your free- 
dom ; or, not in the way or degree that a larger standing army 
would be considered to be dangerous, it is the necessity of 
adopting, now, in the hour of peace, an efficient system of inter- 
nal defence ; defence of your territory and homes, that I am 
anxious to impress upon your minds. A large body of soldiers 
by profession, you cannot have without destroying your liberties. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 381 

You must all be prepared to march from your immediate homes ; 
and all be able to make a skilful use of your arras. 

Mr. John Cartwright, who is generally called Major Cart- 
wright, from his having been a major in the Northamptonshire 
miiitia, who quitted the service, as a lieutenanant of the navy, 
in the year 1775, or 1776, because he would not fight against 
what he deemed the cause of freedom ; who, to the age of 
seventy-five, has persevered for forty years, and still perseveres, 
in unremitted endeavours to obtain a reform in parliament ; this 
venerable patriot, beloved by all who know him for his gentle and 
amiable manners, and honoured for his talents and integrity even 
by those who are the enemies of his political principles, seeing 
the danger of invasion on the part of France, in the year 1803, 
and seeing the government in great consternation as to securing 
the means of defence, republished a work which he had publish- 
ed some time before, entitled England's iEois, a copy of which 
he sent to all the members of the royal family, to all the ministers, 
and many other men of weight in the country. To this work, a 
copy of which is sent to Mr. Malhew Carey, of Philadelphia, I 
beg leave to call your attention. In some of its details it cannot 
be adopted by you, on account of the difference in the division 
of the territory, and of the civil authorities of the two countries. 
But its objects being to put the country in a situation to be able, 
at all times, to defend itself against any enemy, however nume- 
rous and valiant, without a standing army, and without regular 
soldiers ; its basis being the duty of arms bearing, inseparably 
(re a she right of representation in the legislature, it appears to 
mc, that all its principles, and all its outlines are exactly suited 
to your case. 

In (he hope that what I have said may awaken amongst you 
some portion of that serious reflection which the subject demands, 
and in the stronger hope, that you will derive great and useful in- 
formation from the work of Mr. Cartwright, 

I remain your friend, 

William Cobbett. 

P. S. Sinc^ writing the above, the peace between America 
and the Algerine dey has been announced as a report. Perhaps 
your commodore had authority to make peace. Certainly, with 
such a power, cannon balls are the best negotiators. Whether 
the pirates will abide by the treaty or not, if it has been made, 
your government has done itself great honour in the affair. This 
event will not, however, give satisfaction all over the world, 
Algiers was a sort of cur to be set on as occasion may require. 
However, you have broken his jaws, and made him retire to his 
den for the present. This is truly a noble use to make of naval 



382 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

power ! It cannot fail to enhance your name, to give pleasure (o 
your friends, and to add to the mortification and vindictiveness of 
your enemies. I do not believe the news, but if true, here is 
another thing which Mr. Madison has accomplished previous to 

bis being " deposed." 
Botley, 28th July, 1815. 



To Mr. John Cartwright, the implacable enemy of tyranny — 
on the peace between England and America. 

Dear Sir, 

Before I proceed to the proposed subject of this letter, 
I think it right just to notice, that I have, in addressing you now, 
omitted the addition of Esq. at the end of your name. It is 
become high time for us, and all those who think as we do, to 
partake, in no degree whatever, in this sort of foolery, especially 
when we are writing, or speaking upon the subject of a peace, 
which has been made with a nation, whose Chief Magistrate never 
pretends to any title above that of "fellow citizen," which he 
shares in common with all the people of the free and happy coun- 
try, at the head of whose government he has been placed by the 
unbought votes of his " fellow citizens." 

I shall in this letter endeavour to state clearly, and with as 
much brevity as the nature of the subject will admit, the real 
muses of the peace ; and then we shall come at those conseqnen~ 
ces which, I think, we shall find to be of the utmost importance to 
the cause of freedom all over the world. 

The peace has been produced by various causes. When 
Napoleon had been put down, this country was drunk with ex- 
ultation. The war with America was generally looked upon as 
the mere sport of a month or two. Our newspapers published 
reports of speeches, or pretended speeches, (for it is the same 
thing in effect,) in which the orators scoffed at the idea of our 
having any trouble in subduing a people, with two or three thou- 
sand miles of seacoast, defended by raw militia, and by " half a 
dozen fir frigates, with bits of striped bunting at their mast 
heads." This phrase will be long remembered. One of our 
orators called the Americans, as he had before called the Reform- 
ers, "a low and degraded crew" having amongst them "no 
honourable distinctions ;" and he expressed his pleasure, that 
they were, as he said, fighting on the side of our enemy. They 
were, in his eyes, so contemptible, that he was glad we had 
ihemfor enemies, and especially, as, in their chastisement, re- 
publicanism would be humbled in the dust, if not wholly de- 
stroyed. 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 383 

Such were the sentiments of the greater part of the nation, at 
the time when the Kings and Potentates of Germany paid us a 
visit, and when the " bits of striped bunting" were seen re- 
versed under the royal flag on the Serpentine River. There had, 
indeed, occurred, before that time, events, which, one would have 
hoped, would have checked this contemptuous way of thinking. 
The defeat and capture of the Guerriere, the Macedonian, the 
Java, the Peacock, and divers other smaller ships of war, by that 
republic, whose very name we affected to despise, might have 
been expected to create a doubt, at least, of our power to annihi- 
late the republic in any very short space of time. But the 
nation had been cheated here, too, by the corrupt press, who 
persuaded them, that all these losses arose from causes other than 
those of the skill and valour of the Republicans. At one time, 
it was superior numbers ; at another, heavier metal ; at another, 
our own seamen inveigled into the republican ships. This de- 
lusion was kept up for two years, until the incursion in the 
Chesapeake seemed to have closed the scene ; and, you will bear 
in mind, that, at that time, it was the almost universal opinion, that 
our Regent would soon send out his Viceroy to Washington City. 
It was even at this very moment, however, that the tide began 
to turn. The gallant little army of republicans on the Niagara 
frontier, had before proved, at Ciiippeiva, that they were made of 
the same stuff that composed their ancestors ; and, at Fort Erie, 
they now gave a second most signal proof of the same kind. — — 
While these never-surpassed acts of devotion to country were 
performing on the borders of Lakes Ontario and Erie, Lake Cham- 
plain exhibited a spectacle, which struck with wonder all the con- 
tinent of Europe, and which, in fact, astounded every man of 
sense here, who had before clamoured tor the war. It is true, 
that this was only a repetition of the scene, exhibited the year 
before on Lake Erie, where, with an inferior number of men and 
guns, the republican Commodore Perry had beaten and actually 
captured, the whole of our fleet under Commodore Barclay ; but 
all eyes were at that time fixed on the continent of Europe. The 
expected fall of Napoleon, and the real victories over Lira, made 
the loss on Lake Erie (a loss of immense importance, as is now 
seen) to be thought nothing of. Ou^ great object then, was Na- 
poleon. He once subdued, the republic, it was thought, would 
be done for in a trice. To suppose that she would be able to 
stand against us, for any length of time, appeared, to most men, 
perfectly ridiculous. A far greater part of the nation thought 
that it was our army who had put down Napoleon. Indeed, the 
commander of them was called, " the conqueror of France?' 
and, it was said, that a part of the conquerors of France, sent 
to America, would, in a few months, (t reduce" the country. 



384 Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq* 

A part of them were, accordingly, sent thither ; and now we 
are going; to view their exploits against the republicans on the bor- 
ders of Lake Champlain. The governor general of Canada, Sir 
George Prevost, having received the reinforcements from France, 
invaded the republic at the head of 14,000 men, witb^ye mujor 
generals under him, four troops of dragoons, four companies of 
royal artillery, one brigade of rocketeers, one brigade of royal 
sappers and miners. The first object was to dislodge the repub- 
licans from Fort Moreuit, near the town of Pittsburgh, on the 
edge of the lake, about 15 miles within the boundary line of the 
republic. In this fort were 1,500 republican regulars, and not 
more, and 6,000 volunteers and militia from the states of Vermont 
and New- York, under the comojand of a very gallant and accom- 
plished citizen, named Macomb, a brigadier general in the republi- 
can service While Sir George Prevost attacked the fort by land 
Commodore Downie, with his fleet, was to attack it by water. The 
attack on both sides, commenced at the same time ; the land army 
met, as far as it went, with a very gallant resistance, though it be- 
haved, on its part, with equal gallantry ; and Mr. Macomb must, 
in all probability, have yielded, in time, to a force so greatly su- 
perior, if the attack by water had not been frustrated. But on the 
water side, the republican Commodore Macdonough, though his 
force was inferior to ours, and has been so stated in the official 
despatch of Sir George Prevost himself, not only defeated our 
fleet, but captured the whole of the ships, one of which was of 
36 guns, while the largest of the republican ships was of no more 
than 26 guns ! The governor general, seeing the fate of the fleet, 
knowing that the taking of the fort after that would only lead to a 
speedy retreat from it, and fearing the consequences of an attack 
on his way back to Canada, raised the siege, and hastened back 
towards Montreal with all imaginable speed, pursued by the little 
republican army, and leaving behind him, as the republicans state, 
immense quantities of stores, ammunition, Sec. beside great num- 
bers of prisoners and deserters They may have exaggerated 
in these their accounts, but the Canada newspapers stated that 
150 of our men deserted ; and, which is a thing never to he forgot- 
ten, our ministers have never published in the G>zette Sir George 
Prevost's account of his memorable retreat, though they have 
published his despatches relating to all the movements of the army 
before and after that retreat. 

This blow did, in fact, decide the question of war, or peace. 
There was much blustering about it here ; it was affected to treat 
the thing lightly ; the Times, and other venal newspapers, re- 
presented it as a mere trifling occurrence, which would soon be 
overbalanced by sweeping victories on our part. But upon the 
back of this came the brilliant success of the Republicans in re- 
pulsing our squadron, and burning one of our ships before Fort 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 385 

• 

Mobile, in the Gulf of Mexico ; and thus, while we had to 
vaunt of our predatory adventures against the city of Washing- 
ton, the town of Alexandria, and the villages of Frenchtown and 
Stomngtou, the fame of the Republican arms, by land as well as 
sea, sounded in every ear, and glowed in every heart, along the 
whole extent of the sixteen hundred miles which lie between 
Canada and the Mexican Gulf. 

In Europe these events produced a prodigious sensation. 
Those who wished to see a check given to the all-predominant 
naval power of England, rejoiced at them ; and every where 
they excited and called forth admiration of the Republicans. 
There had been, during the struggle on the Continent, no leisure 
to contemplate the transatlantic contest ; but it now became an 
object of universal attention; and Europe, so long accustomed to 
regard English naval invincibility, when the force on both sides 
was equal, or nearly equal, as a thing received and universally 
admitted, was surprised beyond expression at the undeniable 
proof of the contrary. The world was now called on to witness 
the combat between England and America single handed. The 
former was at the summit of power and glory ; she had captured 
or destroyed almost all the naval force in Europe ; those powers 
who had any naval force left were her allies, and were receiving 
subsidies from her ; she had an army of regulars of 200,000 men, 
flushed with victory ; she had just marched part of this army 
through the heart of France herself; she had a thousand ships 
of war afloat, commanded by men who never dreamt of defeat. 
This was the power that now waged war, single handed, against 
the only republic, the only commonwealth, remaining in the 
world. The friends of freedom, who were not well acquainted 
with America, bad been trembling for her. They did not seem 
to entertain any hopes of her escape. They thought it scarcely 
possible, that she should, with her democ ratical government, and 
her handful of an army, without officers, and without stores, re- 
sist England even for a year single handed ; and they saw no 
power able, if willing, or willing, if able, to lend the republic the 
smallest degree of assistance. 

But when the battles of Lake Champlain were announced ; and 
when it was seen by the president's message to his fellow citizens 
of the congress, that the republican government marched on with 
9 firm step, and had resolved not to yield one single poiot to our 
menaces, or our attacks, a very different view of the contest 
arose. The English nation, which had been exulting in the idea 
of giving the Yankeys " a drubbing" began to think, that the 
undertaking was not so very easy to execute ; and seeing no 
prospect of an end to the war and its expenses, they began to 
cry out for the abolition of the greatest of those taxes, the ex- 
istence of which depended on the duration of the war. 

49 



386 httters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 

In (he meanwhile, the ministers, previous to their knowledge o£ 
the battles of Chippewa, Fort Erie, Piattsburgh, Lake Chatnplain, 
and Fort Mobile, had put forward, at Ghent, very high preten- 
sions. They had proposed, as a SINE QUA NON, the ex- 
pulsion of the republicans from a considerable portion of their 
territory, in behalf of the savages in alliance with us ; they had 
demanded, though not as a sme qua noil, the surrender of the 
Lakes to our King, even with the prohibition to the Americans to 
erect fortifications on the borders which would remain to them; 
they had demanded a line of communication between Quebec and 
our territories east of the Penobscot, through the territories of 
the Republic. The American negotiators declined any dis- 
cussion of these conditions, until they should receive instructions 
from their government ; alleging, and very justly, that this was 
the first time that any such grounds o: war, or dispute, had been 
mentioned by us. 

These demands having been transmitted to the president, he, 
instead of listening to them, hid them before the congress, with 
an expression of his indignation at them ; and in this feeling he 
appeared only to have anticipated his fellow citizens throughout 
the country, with the exception of a handful uf aristocfatical in- 
triguers in the state of Massachusetts. New and vigorous 
measures were adopted for prosecuting the war. The congress 
hastened on bills for raising and paying soldiers and sailors ; for 
making the militia more efficient; for expediting the building of 
ships ; erecting fortifications ; providing floating batteries. In 
short, it was now clearly seen, that the government of the re- 
public was equal to a time of war as well as fo a time of peace ; that 
we had to carry on a contest, at 3,000 miles distance, against a 
brave, free, and great nation ; and that the aristocratical faction, 
on whom some men had depended for aid, were sneaking off into 
pitiful subterfuges, afraid any longer to show a hankering after our 
cause. 

In this state of things ; with this prospect before them, the 
ministers wisely resolved to abandon their demands, and to make 
peace, leaving things as they stood before the war. The oppo- 
sition, who had pledged themselves to the support of the war 
upon the old ground, that is to say, upon the ground of impress- 
ment, began to protest against it upon the ground of conquest ; 
and if ihe war had continued, there is no doubt that they would 
have greatly embarrassed the ministry upon this subject, espe- 
cially as the continuation of the war was the only remaining ex- 
cuse for the continuation of the war taxes, against which petitions 
were preparing in every part of the kingdom. Here we cannot 
help observing how wise it was in Mr. Madison to make public 
our demands If these had been kept secret till after the close 
of the war, how long might not that war have drawled on ? The 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 387 

demands would never, perhaps, have been known. How wiae is 
it, then, in the Americans to have framed their government in such 
a way as to prevent mischievous state secrets from existing ! 
How wise to have made all their ruiers really responsible foi 
their acts! How wise to secure, upon ail important points, an ap- 
peal to themselves ! The President was very coarsely treated 
here by some persons, who ought to have known better, for hav- 
ing exposed the conferences. It was said to be an act unprecedented 
in a civilised nation. " Civilized nations " you will perceive, 
mean nations governed by kings and other hereditary sovereigns; 
and, in that sense, the Americans certainly are not a civilized 
nation. But why should such papers be kept secret 1 Or, at 
least, why should they not be made public, if the government 
chooses to make them public ? When once a government has 
despatches in its hands, there is no law that deprives it of the 
liberty to make what use of them it pleases. Nothing could be 
more fair than Mr. Madison's mode of proceeding. The aria- 
focratical faction, whom we called our friends, were crying out 
for peace ; the whole of the American people were represented, 
in our newspapers, as disapproving of the war, and as wishing for 
peace on our terms. What, then, could Mr. Madison do more 
just and more candid than publish to the people the whole of 
those terms ? " There they are," said he, " decide upon them. 
Say, will you have peace upon these terms ? I am, myself, ready 
to perish, rather than make such a peace. Now, let me hear 
what you have to say." A nation of free men agreed with him, 
that they would perish rather than yield to such terms ; and, in- 
deed, rather than yield to us " one single point," though of ever 
so little importance. The result has been, that peace has been 
made, andnot one single point has been yielded to us. 

We now come to the most important and most interesting part 
of our subject ; namely, THE CONSEQUENCES of this 
peace, made at such a time, and under such circumstances. Con- 
sidered as to its probable and almost necessary consequences, it is, 
in my opinion, an event of infinitely greater importance to the 
world than any that has taken place since the discovery of the 
Art of Printing. But I will not enter further into the subject, till 
1 have laid before you, or, rather, put upon record, for the sake 
of reference, some of the overflowings of gall, which this event 
has brought from the throats of the sworn enemies of freedom. 
You have observed, that those public prints in England, which 
were the most bitter against Napoleon, have been also the most 
bitter against the American president ; a fact which ought to make 
people reflect a little before they give way to such outrageous 
abuse of the former, though we must always regard him as a trai- 
tor to the cause of liberty, having married a king's daughter, made 
himself an emperor, and propped up and created kings, for the 



SB 8 Letters of William' Cobbeit, Esq*' 

sake of his and his family's aggrandizement. Still, it is clear, 
that the writers, whom I have now in my eye, thought him more 
favourable to freedom than those who have succeeded kim; be- 
cause, no sooner was he down, than they set upon the American 
president with the same degree of fury with which they had at- 
tacked Napoleon ; and they recommended the deposing of him, 
upon " the same principle?'' they said, that they had recommend- 
ed the deposing of Napoieon. You will not fail to have observ- 
ed this, and to have traced it to its true source; but lam afraid 
that it has passed unobserved by but too large a portion of the 
nation. 

There are several of our public prints, indeed, a very great 
majority of them, in country as well as in town, which have 
urged the justice and necessity of extinguishing the American 
government; that " ill-organise d association ;" that " mischie- 
vous example of the existence of a government, founded on de- 
mocrotical rebellion." This peal was rung from one end of the 
country to the other. But the print, which led the van in this 
new crusade against liberty, was that vile newspaper, the Times, to 
which paper we and the world owe no small portion of those con- 
sequences which will result from the peace of Ghent, followed 
by such a war. This print was, upon this occasion, the trumpet 
of all the haters of freedom ; all those who look with Satanic eyes 
on the happiness of the free people of America; all those wl 
have been hatched in, and yet are kept alive by, bribery and 
corruption. To judge of the feelings excited in the bosoms of 
this malignant swarm by the peace of Ghent; to enjoy the spec- 
tacle of their disappointment and mortification; of their altercate 
rage and despondency ; of the hell that burns in their bosoms: 
to enjoy this spectacle, a spectacle which we ought to enjoy, af- 
ter having endured the insolence of their triumph for so many 
years ; to enjoy this spectacle we must again look into this same 
print ; hear their wailing, view the gnashing of their teeth, set 
now the foam of revenge, and then the drivel of despair, issue 
from their mouths, teeming with execrations. With the help vj 
the ministers, we have, for once, beat the sons and daughter? 
of corruption; and if we bear our success with moderation, let 
us, at any rate, hear and laugh at the cries of our always cruel, 
and, until now, insolent enemy. It is right, too, that the repub- 
licans themselves should know what these wretches now have to 
say ; these wretches, whom nothing would satisfy short of the 
subversion of the republican government ; short of destroying 
that " mischievous example, the existence of a government;, 
founded on democrntical rebellion." As far as I have been able 
to do it openly through the press, I have, during the war, as 
you will have perceived, made known the denunciations of lhes<?: 
wretches against the liberties of America ; and it raay cot be te? rt 



'Letters, of JViUiam CoObett, Esq, 389 

useful to make known their wailings, their fears, their despair at 
the peace ; and the republicans of America ought always to bear 
in mind, that these same wretches, who are ready to gnaw their 
own flesh at seeing their hopes of destroying liberty in America 
blasted ; they ought always to bear in mind, that these sarnr 
wretches it was, who praised, and who still praise, the conduct, 
of Governor Strong, Mr. Otis, Mr. Pickering, Mr. Goodloe 
Harper, Mr. Walsh the reviewer, and their associates. The 
Federalists, too, amongst whom there are many worthy men, 
look steadily at these tacts ; and consider how it must stand with 
their reputation, when it is notorious, that all those in England 
who praise, or give the preference to them, have been using their 
utmost endeavours to urge this nation on to fight against America, 
untii they saw " the world delivered of the mischievovs exam- 
ple of the existence of a government, founded on the principles 
c; democrat ical re ellion." It is for the worthy part of the 
Federalists to consider if these notorious facts square with 
thti tr filiation, whether as republicans, as freemen, as faithful 
to their country, or, even, as honest men. As to the Strongs, 
the Otises, the Goodloe Harpers, the Walshes, they have, in 
this way, nothing to lose. Every sound mind is made up with 
regard to them, and others like them ; but, I should think, that 
the praises of the Times newspaper must make the great body of 
the federalists look about them. 

We will now reperuse the articles, to which I have so often 
alluded. I will insert them, without interruption, one after ano- 
ther, according to their dates, reserving my remarks, if any 
should be necessary, for the close ; and requesting you to pay 
particular attention to the passages printed in italics, or in 
CAPITALS. 

29//t Dec. 1314. — " Without entering at present into the details 
of the treaty, (on which we have much to observe hereafter,) we 
confess that we look anxiously to its non-ratification ; because we 
hope an opportunity will be afforded to our brave seamen to retire 
from the contest, not, as Ihey now are, beaten and disgraced ; 
not with the loss of that trident, which Nelson, when dying, 
placed in his country's grasp; not leaving the marine laurel on 
the unworthy brows of a Rodgers ; but with an ample and full 
revenge for the captures of the Guerriere, the Macedonian, the 
Java, and the numerous other ships that have been surrendered 
on the ocean, besides the whole flotillas destroyed on lake Erie 
mid lake Champlain. Let us not deceive ourselves. These 
victories have given birth to a spirit, which, if not checked, will, 
in a few years, create an American navy truly formidable, 
.They have excited in other nations, who foolishly envy our ma- 
ritime preponderance, an undissembled joy, at beholding our 
course so powerfully arrested. Perhaps it would not be asserting 



390 Letters of William Cobbett, &sy. 

too much, io say, that (hey have detracted as much from the 
opinion of our strength by sea, as the victories of Wellington 
have enhanced that of our strength by land." 

iiOlh Dec. lii\4. — " The state of the funds may be said to af- 
ford a most striking comment on the text of those who have the 
front to call the treaty of Ghent ' honourable* to this country. 
What ? An honourable peace with the last of our adversaries, 
with a populous and commercial nation, and yet a depression in 
the public tunds ! The thing is impossible. There is a moral 
inconsistency in the facts. But the truth, unhappily, peeps out. 
in the course of the eulogy bestowed on this famous specimen of 
diplomatic ingenuity. The peace is, like that of Amiens, a 
peace ol necessity; and upon what grounds? 'A leaning to 
certain points,' it seems, has been * hinted' at the congress of 
"Vienna. Now, let us put this mysterious language into plain 
English. It can bear no other construction than this, that Rus- 
sia, or Austria, or Prussia, has avowed an inclination to support 
the innovations on public law, which Mr. Madison asserts. 
Might not this have been foretold ? Was it not foretold in this 
paper above six months ago ? Was it not the very argument we 
urged, for pushing the war in America with the utmost vigour, 
whilst yet the 6eld was open, and our adversary without allies? 
And is it not a motive for the same conduct, even at this late 
period ? If any of the powers who have received our subsidies, 
. or have been rescued from destruction by our courage and exam- 
ple, have had the baseness to turn against us ; it is morally cer- 
tain, that the treaty of Ghent will confirm them in their resolu- 
tion. They will reflect that we have attempted to force our prin- 
ciples on America, and have failed. Nay, that we have retired 
from the combat with the stripes yet bleeding on our backs ; 
with the recent defeats at Pittsburgh, and on lake Champlain 
unavenged. To make peace at such a moment, they will think, 
betrays a deadness to (he feelings of honour, and shows a timidity 
of disposition, inviting fur(her insuU. IF we could have pointed 
to America overthrown, we should surely have stood on much 
higher ground at Vienna, and everywhere else, than we possibly 
can do now. Even ye(, however, IF we could bul close the 
war with some great naval triumph, the reputation of our mari- 
time greatness might be partially restored ; but to say, that it 
has not hitherto suffered in the estimation of all Europe, and, 
what is worse, of America herself, is to belie common sense and 
universal experience. ' Two or three of our ships have struck to 
a force vastly superior!' No, not two or three, but many, on 
the ocean, and whole squadrons on the lakes : and their numbers 
are to be viewed with relation to the comparative magnitude of (be 
two navies. Scarcely is there one American ship of war which 
has not to boast a victory over the British flag ; scarcely one 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 391 

British ship in thirty or forty , that has beaten an American. 
Our seamen, it is urged, have, on all occasions, fought bravely. 
Who denies it ? Our complaint is, that with the bravest seamen, 
and the most powerful navy in the world, we retire from the 
contest when the balance of defeat is so heavily against us. Be 
it accident, or be it misconduct, we inquire not now into the 
cause ; the certain, the inevitable consequences are what we look 
to, and these may be summed up in a lew words : the speedy 
growth of an American navy, and the recurrence of a new and 
much more formidable American war. From that fatal moment 
when the flag of the Guerriere was struck, there has been quite 
a rage for building ships of war in the United States. Their na- 
vy has been nearly doubled, and their vessels are of extraordi- 
nary magnitude. The people, naturally vain, boastful, and inso- 
lent, have been filled with an absolute contempt of our maritime 
power, and a furious eagerness to beat down our maritime preten- 
sions. Those passions, which have been inflamed by success, 
could only have been cooled by what, in vulgar, but emphatic lan- 
guage, has been termed * a sound flogging ;' but, unfortunately, 
our Christian meekness has induced us rather to kiss the rod, 
than to retaliate its exercise. Such false and feeble humanity is 
not calculated for the guidance of nations. War is, indeed, a 
tremendous engine of justice ; but when justice wields the sword, 
she must be inflexible. Looking neither to the right nor to the 
left, she must pursue her blow, uutil the evil is clean rooted out. 
This is not blind rage, or blinder revenge ; but it is a discrimi- 
nating, a calm, and even a tender calculation of consequenceg. 
Better is it, that we should grapple with the young lion, when 
he is first fleshed with the taste of our flocks, than wait until, in 
the maturity of his strength, he bears away at once both sheep 
and shepherd. The Chatham, of 74 guns, (built in memory of 
the Walcheren expedition,) is ordered to be manned, and will, it 
is supposed, be sent to America, to strengthen the preparations 
for that extended sysiem of warfare, which must take place if the 
president should delay the ratification of the treaty. We are well 
convinced, that every ship, and every soldier, employed in main- 
taining the vital contest for our maritime ascendency, far from di- 
minishing, will add a proportional weight to our influence at Vi- 
enna; but in, truth, Viemia, and all Us fetes, and all its negotia- 
tions, are iufinitely insignificant to us NOW, compared with 
the growth of an American navy, and the probable loss of our 
transatlantic provinces " 

2d January, 1M5.-— *' The year which is just concluded will 
rank among the mist remarkable in history. It has seen the 
downfal of the most formidable despotism that ever threatened 
the security of the civilize ' vorld It has witnessed the resto- 
ration of a PATERNAL GOVERNMENT to the country 



iiBl Letters of William Cobbtli, Esq. 

which had for five-and-twenty years passed through the greatest 
variely of afflicting revolutions. It has beheld all the sovereigns 
of Europe assembled personally, or by their representatives, Mi 
peace, to lay the foundations of permanent tranquillity, and to con- 
struct anew the social edifice, by the proportions of equity and 
moderation. ONE WORTHLESS. FAITHLESS HORDE 
ALONE PERSEVERED in those a'roious plans, which they 
had undertaken, in concert with the fallen despot, for their own 
selfish aggrandisement Punishment hung over \he guilty heads 
of these men, bankruptcy had swallowed up their resources, de- 
spair stared them in the face. It was hoped ' that some signal 
instance of vengeance would have been hurled against them,' and 
that the year would have closed with the triumph of justice and 
of Britain. ALAS ! We have been compelled to witness not 
only the frustration of this hope, but the elevation of our calumni- 
ators and assassins to the height of insolent exultation, on the 
ruins of our maritime greatness. THE NAVY OF BRI- 
TAIN IS DISGRACED FOR EVER: and, oh! shame! the 
fame of the immortal Nelson is eclipsed by the vaunts of the vul- 
gar braggart Rodgers. A Sunday paper asserts, that the ratifica- 
tion of the degrading treaty of Ghent, bv an illustrious personage, 

was a duty MOST RELUCTANTLY PERFORMED. 

We doubt it not. The truly English feelings which proaapted so 
zealous an adherence to the cause of patriotism in Spain, and to 
that of loyalty in France, must have been tortured beyond the 
power of words to express, by the fatal necessity (if necessity it 
was) which compelled the signing awav the honour artd future 
safety of THIS ONCE NOBLE COUNTRY ! May the pre- 
sent year elapse without producing a confirmation of our sad 
forebodings ! Our firmest hope lies, in the present instance, as it 
did during the negotiations of Chatillon, in the arrogant insanity 
of our adversary. In mulish obstinacy, Mr. Madison is not a 
whit behind his great ally. In vanity and self-confidence, the 
Fisks, and Clays, and Smilies, and Wrights of the congress 
cannot be overmatched. It is, therefore, the firm persuasion of 
those who best understand American politics, that the treaty will 
not be ratified. For this event, we repeat, government ought to 
be. fully prepared. The nation, too, ought to be satisfied, that a 
powerful army, and a general of the highest reputation, are ready 
on the spot, either to compel the enemy to ratify the treaty, or to 
punish its non ratification. The officers of the class just specified 
have, moreover, a right to have their characters placed in a fair 
light before their countrymen ; for in all companies, for some time 
past, have been heard murmurs, not loud but deep, at their appa- 
rent backwardness to appear in the field, where their services have 
been, and still are so much needed. If, contrary to our hopes and 
expectations, the treaty should be ratified, the consequences are 



Letters of William Cobbelt, Esq. 393 

easy of development. The Americans, vain of what they will 
consider as their demonstrated superiority over us by land and 
sea, will dream only of more audacious pretensions, and new plans 
©f conquest. Their regular army will be augmented, and placed 
on the Canadian frontier. Their heavy metalled ships, and new 
steam batteries, will be multiplied 7vith the utmost celerity. Then* 
intrigues to stir up rebellion in Canada will be redoubled, and, 
unhappily, with a far greater chance than ever of success, inasmuch 
as the*Canadians will be but too apt to conceive their interests 
sacrificed by the present treaty. All this while WE SHALL 
BE BOUND OVER TO OUR GOOD BEHAVIOUR IN 
EUROPE; for the moment we embark in war here, the redoubt- 
able Captain Pohter wiil again hoist the flag of FREE TRADE 
AND SAILORS' RIGHTS, and this will furnish at once a pre- 
tence and a signal for driving the hated English from Canada. 
How long the West-Indies wiil remain to us, after the loss of our 
North-American provinces, we leave to the sagacious calculations 
of those who can contrive a cheap and easy method of supplying 
our islands with flour, staves, and lumber, from other quarters ; or 
who will secure to us the Newfoundland fishery, when we are ex- 
pelled from the whole American continent. Little has been added 
to what the public already know of the treaty. Indeed, we have 
been assured* that what was circulated as the first slight sketch of 
its contents, gave rather too favourable an idea of it in two very 
material points, the Newfoundland fisheries, and the East-India 
trade. It was generally understood, we believe, that the Ameri- 
cans were specifically excluded both from the one and the other 
of these advantages ; but the truth is, (says our informant,) " that 
neither of these points is mentioned in this impolitic treaty." 

7th Jan. 1815. — « Our correspondent (at Paris) states, thati'nc-e 
the unexpected news from Ghent, the Americans at Paris have 
been everywhere TREATED WITH THE MOST MARK- 
ED RESPECT. They have, in general, assumed, at all pub- 
lic places, their national cockade, both as a means of attracting to 
themselves those attentions, and also to prevent their being mista- 
ken for English, and exposed as such to the affronts which of late 
have been openly shown to our countrymen.' 

Thus have we before us the waitings of the sons and daughters 
of corruption. There is, you perceive, one reigning fallacy in all 
these attacks on the peace ; that is, it is all along presumed, and taken 
for granted, that our situation, with regard to America, would have 
become every day better and better, if the war bad been continued. 
Now, so far from this being any thing like certain, it was not even 
probable, and was barely possible. The chances were all on the 
other side ; the republicans had not only resisted, but had repulsed, 
the onset ; they had followed up their blows with astonishing 
rapidity ; and even at the moment when the conclusion of the 

50 



394 Letters of William Cohbetl, Esq. 

peace was announced, intelligence came to hand that they had 
just driven our army and fleet from Pensacola, a main hold, whence 
our next attack was intended to have been made, 

" IF," says this trumpet of corruption, " our navy had struck 
some great blow ; IF we had done" this, and done that, and 
done the other, then we might have made peace. But IF we could 
do none of these ; IF we had failed in all our attempts ; IF we 
had lost still more frigates and fleets, what would THEN have 
been our situation ? The malignant wretches are senseless with 
rage. They are savage at the loss of their prey. You, who are 
an old hunter of wild beasts, may have seen something in the con- 
duct of disappointed bears or wolves resembling that of these 
foes of freedom, who are now looking towards America, foaming 
with rage and roariug for revenge. 

It is impossible not to feel great satisfaction at seeing the mur- 
derous wishes of these men disappointed. But our satisfaction 
ought by no means to rest here. The great question with regard 
to the excellence of really free government has now been decided 
in a way that most inevitably produce conviction throughout the 
whole world. The fate of the republic of France had excited 
great doubts in the minds of men disposed to cherish liberty, as 
to the capability of that sort of government to be carried on in 
practice for any length of lime, especially if it had to contend with 
the difficulties and dangers of way. The enemies of liberty de- 
lighted in representing real freedom as incompatible with national 
defence and independence. When reminded of the government 
of America, they smiled, and observed, that it might do very well 
as long as America remained at peace; but that her first year of 
war would crumble it into dust, and expose to the mockery of the 
world the vain theorists who had extolled it. In short, this was 
the point always laboured at :— That for a nation to be able to de- 
fend itself in time of war against a formidable enemy, it must 
have an almost despotic government, and a standing army, with 
all their retinue. 

How sincerely will you, who have so long, so zealously, and so 
ably maintained the contrary, rejeice to see that this position, so 
degrading to mankind, has now been fully disproved ! You, in 
your excellent publications, and Sir Francis Burdett, in his speech- 
es, have uniformly insisted, that the safe defence, and the only 
safe defence, of a nation against a formidable enemy, was to be 
found in the arms of free men; that, in order to induce a people 
to fight in defence of their country, they must feel that they have 
something to fight for; that the strength of a government, in the 
hour of real danger, consists solely of the attachment of the peo- 
ple ; that a nation, enjoying real freedom, informed by a press 
really free, and all having a voice in the choice of their represen- 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 395 

tatives, never yet was, and never would be, subdued by an inva- 
ding enemy. 

The rise, progress, and result of the American wars (I mean 
both of them) have now put the truth of these, your favourite doc- 
trines, beyond all doubt. Where are now the knaves who have 
so long scoffed at you as a visionary, and who have had the pro- 
fligacy to assert, that bribery and corruption were essential to 
efficient government 1 Where are now those who apprehended 
anarchy from universal suffrage? Where are now the sticklers 
for influence and virtual representation ? In America every man 
who pays a tax, of any sort, however small, has a vote. He as- 
sists in electing, not only the members of the state legislators, 
and those of the congress, but also the governors of the states, 
and the president himself. No man has any authority, no man 
has any voice in making laws, who has not himself been elected, 
and in the election of whom every man paying a tax has a voice. 
Yet the world NOW SEES, that a government thus formed, 
and a people thus governed, are a match for the most formidable 
power at this day in existence. The world now sees, that a nation, 
thus governing itself, and fully sensible of its freedom, is not only 
active in its defence, but is capable of deeds of valour, such as 
were never before recorded by the pen of the historian of any 
country or any age. Let the advocates for the buying and sell- 
ing of seats do away, if they can, the effect of this glorious 
example. 

The writer, whom I have above quoted, and who was so anxious 
to see " the world delivered of the mischievous example" of th* 
existence of the American government, says, that our navy haa 
been defeated ; that it has been beaten upon the ocean and on 
the lakes ; that we have been beaten by land and by sea ; that 
we have been disgraced for ever; that we have retired from the 
contest with the stripes on our backs; that we have had the tri- 
dent snatched from us ; that we are scoffed at upon the continent 
of Europe. Now, then, if this be true, who is it that has thus 
humbled us 1 What mighty potentate has been able to accom- 
plish all this ? It is a republic ; a nation whose chief magistrate 
receives only about 6,000J. a year, and the whole of whose or- 
dinary revenue does not amount to so much as we, in England 
alone, pay for collecting our taxes; a nation without a standing 
army ; a nation with a press through which any man may publish 
any thing respecting any public person or measure, or any opi- 
nion on the subject of religion j a natiou without dukes, or lords, 
Or knights, or esquires ; and without any distinction of rank of 
any sort being known to the law ; a nation without an established 
church, without tythes, or any compulsory payment to the priests 
of any worship; a nation where bribery and corruption are un- 
known; where no man cgjls another man <; master f* and whet* 



39S Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

a handful of gold would not purchase from the labouring man the 
pulling off his hat even to his employers. The consequences of 
truths so striking, and now so notorious, are much more pleasing 
to anticipate than they would, I imagine, be safe to describe. 

There are some who pretend, that the republic has gained 
nothing by the war ; and those hireling gentlemen, who write in 
" the Quarterly Review" tell their readers, that she has made 
peace tl without accomplishing any one of the objects for which 
she went to war." These hired critics are either wholly ignorant 
of the matter, or they are endeavouring to mislead their readers. 
At any rate, I will once more state the case, and then we shall 
gee which party has been baffled in its attempts. 

America declared war against our King, because he would not 
cease to impress persons (not being soldiers or sailors in the 
enemy's service) from on board her ships on the high seas. This 
was the ground of her declaration of war. A treaty of peace has 
been made, and that treaty says not a word about the impressing 
of persons on board of American ships. Therefore, say these 
wise reviewers, she has not gained her object. Poor slaves ! they 
dare not look at the truth ; which is this : America went to war 
with us, while we were at war with France, and while America 
Was neutral. Our king having made peace with the French, there 
ceased to be any pretext for impressment ; and that being the 
case, America was willing to make peace immediately, without 
any stipulation about impressment, because the war in Europe 
having ceased, her character of neutral would have ceased, and 
our impressments would also have ceased. She wanted no stijm- 
lation to protect her against what she always asserted to be a 
wrong, and which wrong she had resisted by arms, until it ceased. 
Accordingly, we find Mr. Monroe instructing the republican 
■egotiators not to bring forward the subject, it being quite un- 
necessary, seeing that America had resisted our pretended right 
of impressment hy war, and would, of course, resort to the same 
mode of resistance, if the execution of the pretended right 
should be revived. You will observe, too, that it was our King's 
negotiators, who brought forward the subject at Ghent. There- 
fore, if there was any defeat of object here, the defeat was on 
his side. We went to war to assert our right of impressment. 
We have made peace without obtaining any stipulation with re- 
gard to that right, real or pretended. If we revive the exercise 
of this right, at any future time, Mr. Monroe, in his published 
despatches, says, that America is ready again to resist it by force 
of arms. 

The disappointed, malignant man, whom I have so largely 
quoted above, exclaims, that we are "now bound to our good 
behaviour in Europe ; ' for, that the moment we dare to go to 
war, we shall have Capt. Porter sally out upon us witk "freedom 



Letters af William Cobbett, Esq. 397 

of commerce and sailors' rights" inscribed on his flag. Nothing 
is more probable. Indeed, it is quite certain, that the " bits of 
striped bunting" will bear this niolio, if our king revives his or- 
ders of impressment. But the likely thing is, that his Majesty- 
will not revive those orders ; and then we shall have the happiness 
to see ourselves living in peace anJ friendship with the people of 
America, and shall be grateful to his Majesty for the blessing. 

But has the republic gained nothing by the war? Has she 
gained no English ships ? Has she gained no renown ? Have the 
affairs of the Guerriere, the Macedonian, the Java, the Peacock, 
the Avon, those of Lakes Erie and Champlain, and Mobile and 
Pensacola, and Fort Erie and Fort Moreau ; have these memora* 
ble actions, and many others, yielded her nothing in point of ' 
reputation in the world? Is it nothing to have been able, with 
her infant navy, to have resisted with success the maritime power 
of England single handed ? Is it nothing to have called forth the 
admiration of the world by acts of bravery like that of the 
General Armstrong privateer at Fayal ? Is it nothing to have 
made her. implacable enemies in England express their mortifica- 
tion at seeing her citizens in Europe complimented wherever they 
go, in consequence of her success against such a mighty power ? 
Is it nothing to have proved to the world, that, let who will attack 
her, she stands in need of no foreign aid ; no hired fighters of 
other countries ; but that her own citizens are equal, not only to 
her defence, but to the carrying of her " bits of striped bunting" 
in triumph into every sea, against even a superior force? Is it 
nothing to have shown, that, in the midst of such a war, which 
most people thought put her very existence in jeopardy, she has 
doubled, nay, quadrupled, her naval force, including her numerous 
important captures from us ; and that she has steadily proceeded 
in the extension of her naval plans, buildings, and arsenals? Is 
it nothing lo have proved, that her government, though free as air, 
is perfectly adequate to the most perilous of wars ? Is it nothing 
to have thus entitled herself to the confidence of other nations, 
and made her friendship, an object to be sedulously sought after 
by every power of Europe ; and to have done this, too, in a war 
in which it was published that all these powers had, by a secret 
article in the treaty of Paris, bound themselves not to interfere ? 
Is it nothing to have shown, that she wanted the interference of 
none of them ; that she was able, single-handed, to fight her own 
battles, and to come out of the contest, not only unmutilated, but 
covered with glory? Is it nothing for her chief magistrate ; for 
that very Mr. Madison, whom our malignant and insolent writers, 
and others, marked out to be DEPOSED ; is it nothing for Ameri- 
cans to have seen this their plain fellow citizen, with a saiary of 
less than 6,000 pounds a year, with no heralds, guards, or gilded 
coaches, conducting her affairs, through Jhis trying season, with 



398 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

bo much ability, so much firmness, and, at the same time, witfe 
such tenderness for liberty, as to refrain from a resort even to the 
mild law of his country against those who have made use of that 
liberty f or purposes of the blackest and basest treason ? Is this 
nothing, you venal English writers? Is this nothing? Is it 
nothing to hear the chief 'nagistrate of a country say : " let my 
calumniators alone } let the traitors to freedom and America pro- 
ceed ; I rely on the good sense and the virtue of the people ; the 
cause is the people's, and they will be my defenders V* Is ihis t 
too, nothing gained ? 

Yes, it is a gain, not only to America, but to mankind ; for 
who will now be impudent enough to assert, that political freedom, 
that religious freedom, that a press wholly uncontrolled, are m- 
compatible with national safety in times of war ? Who, upon 
the ground of a probability of invasion, will call for a suspen- 
sion of the laws made for the security of men's liberty and lives, 
when the world has now seen the republic of America declared in 
a state of rigorous blockade, mighty fleets and armies at the 
mouths of her harbours and rivers, her soil invaded at several 
points, her towns and villages bombarded or plundered, and her 
capital itself in flames, without producing the suspension, even 
for an hour, of any law, and without arresting or diverting the 
ordinary and gentle course of justice for a single moment ? 

I need say no more. Here is the object on which the friend 
of freedom will rivet his eyes. Here is a dagger to the heart of 
tyranny ; and, as such, it is worthy of being presented to you. 
The total overthrow of the aristocratical faction in America ; an 
immense emigration to that country ; her consequently rapid 
increase of population and power ; the creation of a great maritime 
force in the republic ; the independence of South America. 
These are amongst the consequences to be expected ; but that 
consequence which I consider of more importance than all the 
rest, is, the benefit which the cause of freedom will receive from 
the example of America, now become so conspicuous a nation. 
Away, now, with all their trumpery about Poland, and Saxony* 
and Belgium, and the Congress of Vienna ! Let them do what 
they like with the Germans, and the Cossacks, and the Dutch ; 
let them divide them and subdivide them in any manner that they 
please ; let them whisker them or knight them according to their 
fancy. We can now look to growing millions of free and en- 
lightened citizens, descended from the same ancestors, and speak- 
ing the same language, with ourselves, inhabiting an extensive 
and fertile country, tendering food and freedom to the miserable 
and oppressed of every other clime, and a PRESS for the 
promulgation of those truths which these unfortunate beings have 
so long been compelled to suppress. 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 399 

I am, with the greatest regard and respect, your faithful and 
most obedient servant. 

William Cobbett. 



{This letter ha» never before appeared in print, as far as we can discover W« 
received it, in manuscript, about the same time that we learnt our proposals for 
publishing Cobbett's Letters had been received in England. The reasons for sup- 
pressing this letter in the Register, we cannot understand. We received it in a 
mutilated state, and there were about twenty lines which we were utterly unable to 
•Vecipher. It was addressed to the Publishers of Cobbett's Letters, in an envelope, 
without a line accompanying it.] 



TO THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL. 

My Lord, 

Within the last week I have received a bundle of Ame- 
rican newspapers, for which I am indebted to a gentleman of that 
country, who left them with my publisher, with the remark, that 
he did not wish to see me ; that I was personally unknown to 
him, but that he presumed I would turn them to good account. 
I really did not know what better account I could put them to, 
than to peruse them instantly, and inform your lordship of their 
contents. 

The first paper I laid my hands on, was, what they call in 
America, a country paper, and is published twice a week : it was 
headed, in large capitals, GLORIOUS NEWS! UNPA- 
RALLELED VICTORY! obtained by the AMERICAN 
ARMS, under GENERAL JACKSON, at New-Orleans. 
This, naturally enough, caught my attention, and without dis- 
turbing another of them, I sat down to read it, thinking that you 
might like to hear what kind of a story Jonathan told of this 
battle ; very little of which, as regards matter of fact, has as yet 
come to the ears or understandings of the enlightened people of 
this island. Should I tell you that it was with astonishment that 
J read of this unexampled defeat and carnage of the forces, under 
Major-General Pakenham, the brother-in law of our own immor- 
talized living general, the Duke of Wellington and Marquis of 
Talavera ; should I so say, I, who have so often told you, so 
often forewarned you of what would be the fate of all the armies 
you should send to America, should I own to you my astonish- 
ment at their being beaten and driven off the field by a Yankee 
general, what would your lordship think ? You certainly could 
not suppose, that in this hour of your mortification I would at- 
tempt to insult your feelings, by presuming to flatter you ; or, 
that I would give you credit for plans and operations which have 
met every disaster, by saying that they merited otherwise. No, 
indeed, it is from no insulting motive of flatten^ against which, I 



400 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

know your deadly antipathy, but from real downright truth that 
I now declare to you, that when I read this disastrous account, 
astonishment is but a weak word to express ray feelings. My 
lord, I was amazed ! I was under the agony of an ague, and 
the very highest paroxysm of fever. I, who have ever said, from 
the day of the sailing of the 44th and 8Ath regiments, under Ge- 
neral Ross, that they only went to meet disgrace ; and which has 
proved as sure, as many other things which I have told you. I, 
who have ever and anon, been repeating to you, that your sap- 
pers, your miners, and^our rocketmen, were nothing at all in 
comparison to a Kentucky rifle, in the hands of a back-woods- 
man ; shall I again own it, even I was amazed. I will not im- 
pose upon you, by saying, that I did not most religiously calcu- 
late, that the whole army under General Pakenham would be 
beaten, had they been twice the number: and you must recollect, 
my lord, that I deprecated the cruelty of sending men from the 
continent to America, who were but just panting from their fights 
and fatigues in Spain and in France; yet, although I calculated 
on their being beaten, 1 did not expect to see them shot down, one 
hundred men, rank and file, for one of the enemy. No, this 
would indeed be arrogance, should I say it ; it would be assuming 
a foresight for disaster, of which, I assure you, I have no pre- 
tensions ; and had I ventured to predict it, I should have merited 
a strait waistcoat. But as I said, I really expected all your 
forces would be beaten. I expected to hear of hard fight- 
ing, and atdcody business on both sides, but I candidly confess 
that I never dreamed of hearing of a slaughter of five thousand 
British troops, and that in all this havock, the enemy in killed 
and wounded, should not exceed twenty-three solitary militiamen. 
This account, if it was not corroborated by such testimony as 
would sileace the most sceptical, I would put behind the fire. It 
would be a pleasure to me if I doubted it ; but I assure you it 
looks to be too true ! Such a havock as this, was never before 
made in a British army. The American papers state the force 
landed, as being only between nine and ten thousand men, one 
half of which was killed. We had the opinion here, that this 
force amounted to sixteen thousand men ; had it been thirty thou- 
sand, it would have shared the same fate. 

This military miracle, for I can call it nothing else, really pla- 
ces all Buonaparte's former victories in the shade ; they bear no 
comparison ; in a word, it has not its parallel any where. The 
strongest fortress that ever was besieged, Gibraltar itself; refer to 
history my lord, I bes; of you, for three hundred years, and see 
if you find any thing like it. Gracious God J It is too shocking 
for animadversion. Half a dozen more such expeditions, and I 
fear we should have scarcely men left to wajk the parade at St 
James's, or to change duty at the Horse Guards. 



Letters of William, Cobbett, Etiq. 401 

And now, are you not satisfied that I have not been your ene- 
my, as many of your particular friends and advisers would have 
you think me ? You must not cast blame upon me, because I 
did not tell you that this dreadful unprecedented catastrophe 
would be the result of your expedition to the southern coast of 
America. You must acknowledge you never informed me of its 
destination, or what was expected from it; indeed, if you had so 
far condescended, although I should, without doubt, have fore- 
warned you that it would have met defeat, I never would have 
gone so far as to say, that the whole army, or the greater part of 
it, would be killed, without scratching their enemy. 

And here, I must not omit mentioning the reward which the 
American congress bestowed upon their gallant officer, General 
Jackson. Gallant, I am forced to call him, although he has been 
our severest enemy. I find in the paper before me, of the 6th 
of February, (the latest I have,) that Mr. Troup, a deputy from 
Georgia, recommended the adoption of a resolution, that the 
thanks of congress be presented to General Jackson, and, through 
him, to the brave officers and men under his command; and that, 
the president be requested to cause a gold medal to be struck and 
presented to him. This resolution was twice read, and referred 
to the committee of the whole house, and I regret that I have 
not the papers which confirm it, although I have no doubt but 
that it met a unanimous adoption. This is the reward which the 
American government are in the habit of showing to bravery ; and 
the bravest man in it neither looks for, nor expects, a greater remu= 
iteration. Had General Jackson been less skilful, yet, had he 
shown perseverance, bravery, and patriotism, he would have re- 
ceived the approbation of his countrymen and his conscience, 
though, perhaps, not the thanks of congress. But alter the posi- 
tion, and let us suppese that Sir Edward Pakenham had been suc- 
cessful ; what would you and the British parliament have done for 
Sir Edward? Would a dukedom have been too much for him 
had he gained possession of the embouchure of the Mississippi, 
that great key to all the commerce of the western states, even to 
the heart of Pennsylvania ? Would the dukedom of Orleans, in 
reversion, with a grant of as many thousand pounds sterling as 
there are stars in the firmament, been too much, in your imagina- 
tion, for the man who would have possessed himself of this magi- 
cal padlock and key, which opened or closed at pleasure, the 
gates of all the commerce of a country seven times as large in, 
extent as England and Scotland together 1 And yet, my lord, 
the American general who defended this all-important passe par 
tout, more important than that of your secret cabinet, and who, in 
defending it, gave such a lesson of military self defence as never 
army of the earth received before, is, doubtless, well contented, 
satisfied, and grateful, with the thanks of his countrymen ; and I 

51 



402. Leiiers of William Cobbetl, Esq. 

would wager that he values the little gold medal, in weight not above 
a doubloon, full as much, or more than you or your generals would 
value the dukedom and the estate. This is neither more nor less 
than the effect of education and habit. The American officer, or 
private, when he takes the field to defend his country, has but 
one object in view — to do his duty. Aggrandizement, military 
or civil honours never trouble his imagination : he has enlisted to 
fight, and fight he will; if honours accompany his exertions, so 
much the better. Pensions, places, and pecuniary recompenses, 
are, as yet, unknown amongst this people ; and I should not be sur- 
prised/on the disbandment of the army, if General Jackson him- 
self should return to the ranks of private life, without one six- 
pence more pay than that which his commission entitled him to. 
There are various excuses to be made for your lordship in this 
late warfare, as well as for Don Quixotte when he fought the 
windmills — you had both mistaken your adversaries ; but there is 
one excuse, to wit, that of taking wholesome advice, which you 
cannot lay claim to. Had the Knight of the Rueful Visage lis- 
tened to Sancho, he had not been unhorsed ; and had you listened 
to me, you had not been prostrated with the Prince Regent's 
speech in your hand, promising to close the war with glory to the 
arms of England. My lord, there are men who will not take ad- 
vice from those who are able to give it them ; among the number 
" I reckon," as they say in America, yourself. Had you known 
these people whom you dreamed you could flog into submission 
but half as well as I do ; had you known their thorough contempt 
for pomp, for grandeur, for titles, and for many other things which 
your lordship's generals, as well as your lordship, prize above all 
other considerations, you never would have been led into the error 
of thinking, that by threats, by rods, or by bribes, you could suc- 
ceed in subduing them. I reassert it, my lord ; they are a won- 
derful people, and such you must admit you have found them. 
There is not such a people in the world beside : and the reason 
they are such a people, is, as I have oftentimes said before, that 
each man feels his independence ; he has not in this world a 
superior, whom he regards or looks up to with awe. Not that this 
people do not do justice to talents and virtue ; they respect and 
honour them, but they worship them not ; indeed, they rather 
watch them, knowing that superior talents, if misapplied, may 
mislead and do much injury. They regard with reverence and 
awe, nothing less than the Divinity, or his image upon earth; and 
if they have a weak side, on which they can be assailed without 
suspicion, it is this one. The clergy, and the clerical officers, 
are held, throughout this extended region, in more respect than 
the established clergy of our country are in England. The rea- 
son is obvious : with them they have h. herto been the pastors 
and protectors, the advisers and the friends, and, under the mm- 






Letters of William Cobbett, Esq, 403 

tie of the sacred order, they have bound the will as well as the 
duty. With us it is different: the abuses of religion are more 
spoken of among us than its benefits. Hence it is, that if these 
people have a weak point, it is here you must look for it ; and I 
have already observed and remarked on it in the state of Massa- 
chusetts, in different letters I have written, which, I trust, may do 
good in opening the eyes *###*■*#### 

(About ten lines defaced.) 
* # # * * the poorest man in this country cherishes the 
idea that his son has as fair a chance for the highest offices as 
the richest man's son in the land ; and General Jackson himself, 
who has certainly achieved a greater land victory than any your 
lordship can cite from all the numerous bulletins of slaughter, in 
the archives of **##*#*, never was educated for a military life, 
nor did his father before him ever dream that his son should im- 
mortalize himself at the cannon's mouth, or in the deadly breach. 
These acts, and this spirit, which display themselves among this 
people, arc momentary ; what their duration may be, hencefor- 
ward, will depend much upon the policy of England : they are 
now approximating to a military people ; if you fan that flame, 
my lord, I will not answer where the conflagration shall cease. 

I never get into America, but my subject runs away with me ; 
I am obliged to return to my starting post. Here lays the map of 
this surprising country, and its extensive environs, which Sir Ed- 
ward Pakenham was to have subdued. I trace with my finger the 
meanderings of the Ohio, from its junction with the Monongahela 

and waters of the Alleghany at Pittsburgh, down to , its 

falling info the Mississippi stream, nearly a distance of 3,000 
miles. Here, indeed, I must own you made a bold move, to say 
the least of it, when you directed the attack against New-Orleans. 
What, my lord, are you doubtful of the boldness of this measure ? 
Of the grandeur of this conquest ? Next to your taking posses- 
sion of the mountains, valleys, and level land, in our sister planet, 
by a squadron of balloons under Garnerin, it certainly would have 
proved the most entertaining circumstance, and the most produc- 
tive of astonishing events, that has enlightened us within the 
century. 

I have said, that General Jackson was not educated for a mili- 
tary life ; I made the assertion, which is uncommon with me, 
without being positive as to the fact; but taking it for granted, that 
affairs, as regarded military minutiae, on the breaking out of the 
war, were pretty nearly as I left them in that country, I consi 
dered that I did not hazard much in saying so ; however, in pe- 
rusing my newspapers, (and I write as I read, with the view of 
aiding information,) I met with an account of this said General 
Jackson's career, and it confirms what I have before said. The 
account I have read is taken from a paper printed in Virginia, 



404 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

called the Richmond Inquirer : It states that he was born in 
North Carolina, and educated for the bar ; that he was a member 
of the Tennessee convention j then, a member of assembly ; 
and, afterwards, a senator of the United States ; since that, a 
judge of the supreme court: that after having filled this station 
with honour, he turned his attention to military life, and soon rose 
to be a major general of militia. The account speaks highly of 
his private character and disposition, and states that he is about 
fifty 4ive years of age. 

This is the way, my lord, that these people make their gene- 
rals ; or, rather, I should say, this is the manner they have hitherto 
made them. We have our black gowns, and wigs with three tails, 
our counsellors, our barristers, and judges, but we rarely see any 
of them turn out, and take the tented field. As regards wigs, no 
man in America, that has hairs enough to keep his head warm, 
whether he belong to the bar or the pulpit, ever thinks of trou- 
bling a periwig-maker's shop; with us, we call them perfumers. 
Yet, although they don't wear wigs, they are not without wits ; 
and I assure you, that they esteem the inside of the head as of 
much more value than the out. I have repeatedly mentioned, 
whether I am believed or not, I can't say, that you can scarcely 
find a man in that country who cannot read and write ; and that the 
village blacksmith is frequently seen to put down the Gazette, to 
shoe a traveller's horse. Thus it is that General Jackson, after 
having been a member of a convention, a member of assembly, a 
senator, and a judge, commences, in what we would call the de- 
cline of life, the arduous profession of arms ; and this, with mo- 
tives very different from pecuniary ones ; for his private fortune 
is said to be independent. Now, I believe I might assert, that 
such an instance is not found among us once in fifty years, and I 
am inclined to believe, they would be scarce, even in the alarm of 
French invasion. It really would be ludicrous to see some of 
those non-descripts we meet with at Doctor's Commons, perform- 
?ng, the manual under a drill sergeant. 

3Iy lord, history has hitherto confined herself to the Maid of 
Orleans, and the exploits, she performed against our Henry's ge- 
nerals, Talbot and Salisbury. Hereafter, it will speak of the 
Man of Orleans, and it is as well we should know who he was; 
and although not, like the maid, inspired by a religious phrensy, 
he was certainly inspired to do us more mischief in one fatal hour 
than a twelvemonth can repair. Whatever idea you may have 
of my heart, I assure you, in the language of sincerity, it aches on 
this occasion. Would to God, I had not to record it ! This* 
battle has cost me some agonies, in common with many 
others of his majesty's subjects. The British troops, on that day, 
immortalized themselves for their bravery; never was more heroic 
gallantry displayed by men. The Americans themselves attest it 3 



Letters of William Cobbetl, Esq. 405 

and there were brave spirits who fell on that field, deserving of a 
better memorial than the temper of the times can now afford them, 
whose valour should live in marble and in brass. 

My lord, we have met dreadful humiliations in this contest ; 
the supremacy of the British flag has been destroyed in the eyes 
of all Europe, and, what is still worse, in our own. All our de- 
monstrations by land, have met with disaster upon disaster, not to 
say disgrace, except in one solitary instance — I mean the attack 
upon the capitol of Washington ; and here we displayed a fero- 
city in setting fire to the president's house, and burning a library, 
for which the Americans pretend to accuse us of Vandalism. 
Notwithstanding all the injuries at home and abroad, which this 
unnecessary war has inflicted on us, the Times paper, when it 
heard that peace had been concluded at Ghent, instead of rejoic- 
ing, was the first to throw a firebrand in its face. " Let us" says 
the Times, " yet see one of our first generals sent out. Let us 
behold a British force in America, capable of intimidating Madi- 
son and his congress. Let us hope to see the war concluded with 
one blow, that" may not only chastise the savages into present 
peace, but make a lasting impression on their fears." This is the 
language held out to deceive, and to irritate passions which should 
be assuaged. What would the Times want ? What kind of ge- 
nerals ? What kind of armies would he send out to subdue that 
country, which he considers as easily intimidated as the island of 
Jersey or Guernsey ? Have we not had generals of the first 
talents, and the best of veteran troops employed ? What a 
Drummond, a Ross, a Pakenham, and a Gibbs, could not perform 
with a hundred thousand men, who could ? Had the Duke of 
Wellington been at Orleans, what would have prevented his sha- 
ring the fate of Pakenham ? He has no more claim to invulnera- 
bility than another man, and a Kentucky rifle would no more have 
missed fire, if directed against him, than against another— its 
mark it never misses. 

The American papers state, that the watchword and counter- 
sign of the English army was, booty and beauty ; for the honour 
of English officers, I doubt this statement. If one brave man 
was alive, who fell on that field, I could ascertain the fact; and 
if I found the statement false, I would desire the Americans to con- 
tradict if, which I am convinced they would do upon a refutation 
properly authenticated. These people are generous as well as 
brave ; they have displayed their generosity in many instances, 
which must have made an impression even upon yourself: they 
would use their best endeavours to take the life of their enemy ; 
but they would no more strip him of his honour than they would a 
wounded soldier of his shirt. This assertion of the American 
newspapers is a stigma on all the military of the kingdom. As 
vou, my lord, can easily ascertain the fact, I beg of you, if found 3 






406 Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 

as I believe it, a misstatement, that you will, for the honour of the 
army, contradict it. t 

And now, before I close this letter, which I intended should 
not tire you, being written on a subject which I entered upon 
with pain. ##**********#* 

{Here twelve lines, and upwards, are entirely defaced, and with' 
out any connection we read) — a corrupted majority denationalizes 
a state, and weakens its energies. {Another break of about six 
lines.) Fortune has apparently been propitious — what we have 
lost by one contest we have gained by another. Let us not lose 
this also. I adjure you to reflect on what ground it is we stand— a 
few missteps, and we might find ourselves plunged into miseries, 
against which there is no combating, and no retreat. 

Above all, let me impress upon you, to be sincere in this paci- 
fication with America ; endeavour to forget that she ever had been 
a colony to Great Britain. This is the most pernicious recollec- 
tion we have among us ; and I know that among many of your 
counsellors and bosom intimates, and even by many members ©£ 
the royal family, this ridiculous recollection is still maintained, 
and the idea still cherished, that she might become so again. It 
is an illusion of the weakest, as well as the most injurious stamp. 
If you wish to avoid another war with these people, which I fore- 
warn you will prove the most calamitous one that Britain ever 
waged, you must treat them as an independent and high-minded 
people. Should you do this, and curb the insolence of petty offi- 
cers in our navy, who disgrace their flag by usurping an author- 
ity to which th^y have no title, you may succeed in making 
friends of a nation, which, in a few years to come, will hold the 
highest rank in the estimation of the world. Let the disasters of 
this war be constantly before your eyes, and do not believe that a 
prolongation of it would have produced any changes for the bet- 
ter. The wisest step, since its commencement, wa3 its conclusion ; 

for had it continued another year but I forbear, my lord, 

I wish not to provoke an irritation ; things that are past had better 
be forgotten, provided our memories will admit of it. Botley is 
still a very pleasant place, notwithstanding my year's confinement 
in Newgate, and the money I paid to his majesty. 

Did I think that you would accept of advice from a man who 
really has never deceived you, and who has told you more truths 
about America than you ever learnt from any man living, 
I would recommend you to admonish the prince, if he wishes 
to preserve the interests of his kingdom, to place the commer- 
cial relations with America on the most favourable footing. The 
late contest has lost us much, and cost us more, than I can pre- 
tend to keep an account of; of this, however, you, my lord, need 
no information. A part of this loss may yet be retrieved, but it 
must be by reiser measures than we have LHherto adopted. Let 



Letters of William Cobbett, Esq. 407 

me caution you not to drive the people of America to become a 
manufacturing nation ; should you do this, you lose a third of 
your strength. You may consider this as a preposterous idea ; 
but I assure you I see symptoms of their becoming one much 
earlier than I ever imagined. This has been one of the many 
serious evils resulting from the misunderstanding with America - 
I view it as one of the greatest ; and should you have any doubts 
on this head, you may easily satisfy them, my lord, by engaging 
an able linguist in all our various vernacular tongues, and travelling 
through the different manufacturing towns in England and Scot- 
land, when, I engage, you shall find my fears are not without 
foundation. 

I am, my lord, yours respectfully, 

Wm. Cobbett, 

Botley, March SO, 1815, 



FINIS. 






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